/^9 



PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOPtlC. 






BY 






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cr: 



JOHN BASCOM, 

PROFESSOE OF EHETORIC IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE; AUTHOR OF 
"ESTHETICS, OR SCIENCE OF BEAUTY," ETC. 



WOOLWORTH, AINSWORTH & COMPANY, 

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 



^^" 



rP' 






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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

WOOLWORTH, AiNSWORTH, & COMPANY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



STEREOTYPED AT THE 

BOSTON STEREOTYPE Fo'uNDRT^ 

Ifo. U luring Lane. 



PEEFACE. 



There is much seeming boldness in offering 
a new work on Khetoric. Few subjects have re- 
ceiyed so mueh attention from so many able 
writers. The following treatise has arisen from 
considerable experience in instruction. It aims 
to be what it is entitled, a Philosophy of Rhet- 
oric, giving the principles as well as the rules 
on which excellence depends. The. discussions 
present the mental and moral laws, of influence. 
The work is chiefly designed for the later years 
of collegiate instruction. A simple rhetoric of 
rules prepares the beginner for his earlier efforts : 
afterward, when the nature* and difficulties of the 

(3) 



4 PKEFACE. 

task are better understood, he is ready for a 
somewhat more extensive and philosophical dis-^ 
cussion of the principles it involves. A complete 
and succinct statement of these is the object of 
this work, and it is designed to take, in a course 
of training, a later position, such as is assigned 
Whately or Campbell. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

FAGK. 

Science, Art, Definitions of. — Relations of. — Principles. — Eules. -- 
Skill. — Ehetoric, what. — Its Eelations to Arts and Sciences. — Its 
Philosophy, what. — Four Steps. — Eelations of Eules to Nature, to 
Genius, to Success •• 9-20 

BOOK I. Ends. 

CHAPTER I. 

DEPAETMENTS OF COMPOSITION. 

No Composition aimless. — Leading Aims. — Three Departments of 
Composition.- Eelation of the Understanding, Emotions, and Will. 
—Historic Progress 21-27 V 

CHAPTER II. 

PEOSE. 

Double Office of. — History. — Philosophy. — Novel. — Prose allows no 

distinct Form 28-31 

CHAPTER III. 

POETEY. 

Ehetoric includes Poetry; why ?— Kind of Emotions called forth. — Its 

Eelations to Metre; to Esthetics 32-35 

CHAPTER IV. 

OEATOEY. 

Its End. — This defines the Means. — Eelation to Hearers ; to Speaker.— / 

Divisions of. — Three Sources of Impulse. — The Eight, Emotions ^' 

(5) 



CONTENTS. 

sustaining it. — Pleasure, Emotions giving Rise to it. — Interest. — 
Its Emotions. — Pulpit Oratory. — Advantages. — DiflElculties. — Ad- 
dress to the Individual. — To the Assembly collectively. — Delibera- 
tive Oratory. — Eloquence of the Bar 36-52 



BOOK II. Means. 

TwoKinds.— Division especially applicable to Oratory 53,54 

CHAPTER I. 

LAW OF INFLUENCE. 

Relation of the Individual to others. — Law of Influence that of Eight. 
— Obligation of Speaker to himself; to others. — Necessary to Suc- 
cess. — Nature of Oratory 55-62 

CHAPTER II. 
ARGUMENTS. 

Sources of Proof, two : Intuition, Experience. — Four Forms of Intui- 
tive Proof. — Experience. — Connections on which it proceeds. — Fal- 
lacies. — Testimony, two Kinds: of Fact, of Opinion. — The two 
confounded. — Calculation of Chances. — Proof either Intuitive or 
Rationative. — Arguments Inductive or Deductive. — Character of 
each. — Principles which determine the Choice and Arrangement 
of Arguments. — Burden of Proof. — Different Forms of Oratory. — 
Treatment of Opponent. — Answering Objections. — Importance of 
Argument 63-94 

CHAPTER III. 
EMOTIONS. 

Relation of. — Sympathy, OflBce of. — Estimate of Speaker's Character. — 

Sects and Parties. — Office of Introduction. — Qualities which wia 

Sympathy. — Effect on Orator. — Kinds of Feeling to be used by 

f Orator. — How secured. — Growth of Feeling. — How remove ad- 

/ verse Feeling. — Two States interfering with Success. . . . 95-112 

CHAPTER IV. 

IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 

Instrumental Faculties. — Imagination, Source of vivid Ideas, of Convic- 
tion. — Sources of Imagery. — Memory. — Importance. — Method of 
Employment 113-118 



CONTENTS. i 

CHAPTER V. 

"WIT, HUMOR, AND KIDICULE. 

Definitions.— The Resemblance in Wit. — Habit of Mind to which it 

gives Rise. — Its Office. — Ridicule. — Its Office 119-124 

CHAPTER VI. 

LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 

Relations of Language to Thought. — Growth of Language. — Lead- 
ing Constituents. — Change in Words. — Their Meaning. — Their 
figurative Force. — Philosophy. — Use. — Qualities of. — Purity. — 
Propriety. — Why regard these Qualities. — Permanence. — Symme- 
try. — Intelligibility. — How Use established. — Divided Use. — 
Canons 125-151 

CHAPTER VII. 

BARBARISM. 

Kinds. — Foreign Words. — Provincialisms. — Vulgarisms. — Obsolete 

Words. — Compounds. — Rules for Formation 152-158 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 

Solecism, what. — Arrangement. — Marks of Declension. — Frequent 
Solecisms. — The Verb. — Moods. — Tenses. — Passive Forms. — 
Conjunctions. — Improprieties. — Synonymes. — Plurals. — Efiect of 
Solecisms J of Improprieties . 159-178 

BOOK III. Methods. 

CHAPTER I. 

STYLE. 

Style, what. — Kinds. — Qualities. — Perspicuity. — Elegance. — Energy. 

— Relation of these to each other; to Mind; to Composition. . 179-184 

CHAPTER II. 

PERSPICUITY. 

Importance of. — Relation to Capacity; to Subject. — Dependence on 
Honesty; on Discipline; on the Choice of End; of Means. — Di- 
visions. — Comparisons. — Objects of. — Antithesis. — Choice of 



8 ' CONTENTS. 

"Words. — Drollery. — Common Life. — Anglo-Saxon. — Number of 
"Words. — Arrangement. — Adverbs. — Pronouns. — Perspicuity, rel- 
ative. — Not always needed in full Degree 185-206 

CHAPTER III. 

ELEGANCE. 

What. — Dependence on Emotions. — Relation to various Kinds of 
Composition. — Exercise, in Nature, in Society, in Literature. — Re- 
lation between Style and Subject; between the Parts and the Whole. 
— Proportion. — Relation between the Discourse and the Circum- 
Btances and Persons. — Relation to the Speaker 207-222 

CHAPTER IV. 

ENERGY. 

Dependence on the Desires; on the Will; on Virtue; on the Distinct- 
ness of the End. — Three Forms : Strength, Vivacity, Vigor. — Qual- 
ities of Thought. — Thoroughness. — Rapidity. — Directness. — Di- 
rectness, how lost, by Philosophical, by Poetical Excellence. — Choice 
of Words. — Speciality. — Strength of Words. — Asseverations. — 
Epithets. — Number of Words. — Tautology. — Pleonasm. — Ver- 
bosity. — Arrangement. — Period. — Loose Sentence. — Figures. — 
Tropes. — Delivery. 223-248 



INTKODUCTION. 



SciEi^OES and arts, though closely related, are in 
themselves quite distinct. This difference we need to 
understand for the right apprehension of either. A 
science has reference to an intellectual end ; an art, to 
a practical end : the one informs and gratifies the mind 
by a knowledge of the real character and dependence 
of things ; the other guides and fortifies life in their 
use and government. A science is a stricter form of 
knowing ; or, accurately, it is a department understood 
in its facts and laws. The impulse of knowledge which 
belongs to mind urges it ever to inquire. What is? and, 
Why it is? And these questions fully and wisely an- 
swered give science. 

An art is the application of knowledge — is that system 

of rules by which we reach a practical end. Not every 
1* (9) 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

end is so fixed or inclusive as to involve any methods 
of action, any determinate means, tlie mastery of which 
makes the artisan. Around all the general and settled 
pursuits of life, however, are clustered guiding precepts ; 
and these constitute the arts. 

Art must precede science ; since the wants of life 
arise at once, and before that leisure is secured which 
is the condition of inquiry and accurate knowledge. 

The imperfect and inaccurate information involved in 
the rudiments of art and civiKzed life will not be ripened 
into science, till, the appetites of the body in a measure 
appeased, the -mind can secure attention to its OAvn 
wants. This step, however, once taken, the sciences 
are established on their own footing, and henceforward 
take the lead. The rules of art become the scholiums 
of knowledge — the application of its principles. The 
foundation of a complete and broad control of Nature is 
laid in an extensive understandino- of her forces. Art 

o 

can hardly reach any high point till adopted of science, 
and taken under her instruction. Though our inferior, 
physical life is immediate and importunate in its claims ; 
it can be lifted into broad, abundant, and safe enjoy- 
ments only as it is endowed with the mastery, and 
protected by the guidance, of the intellect. 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

Skill arises from a practical familiarity with rules^. 
It is the acquisition by muscle and mind of the quick- 
ness, the ease, which arise from habit. Both_mind and 
body are greatly dependent for rapidity and precision^^^^^ 
,^^f_actioiL-JMir-p^aetice. To this the artisan and orator^ 
o wa jfieir fSHKEy S3^^ execution . The acqui- 

sition of skill in any art is what is usually understood 
by learning that art. As skill arises from a transfer 
of action from the slow and hesitating movements of 
thought to the quick mechanical movements of habit, 
-^^froHL-aM-^^^setous-^RxrtL tiO . .anv.^amcQnsciQua. pQweiv-=-it»««— * 
depends wholly on familiarity, on a protracted use of 
rules. This is as true in higher as in lower art ; of the 
artist as of the artisan. Elegance of manners, ease of 
expression, and even the highest virtue, arise from 
forgetfulness of rules in their perfect and unconscious 
application. Facility of execution we may expect, there- 
fore, to nnd associated with rules ; and this will be all 
the greater, because of their limited application. 

A priticiple as involving a law of nature, as stating a 
condition under which all action takes place, is to be 
distinguished from a rule. The one is . a specific direc- 
tion by which a given end is reached ; the other, a 
statement of that method or order of Nature to which 



12 INTRODUCTION.. 

any of iier phenomena are conformed. A knowledge of 
/principles is requisite for understanding the reason of 
' rules ; for fertility and fulness of resources in meeting 
untried exigencies ; for the subjugation of new forces in 
nature, and their varied application beyond the stretch 
of limited experience. Principles give us scope and 
power in device ; rules, ease and perfection in execution. 
Principles belong to science ; rules, to art. Invention 
is dependent on both — on a knowledge of the condi- 
tions under which natural forces act, and on that inge- 
nuity and manipular skill by w^hich those conditions are 
met, and power is successfully applied to the production 
of a given result. There may be much good work 
within an art with little mastery of its principles ; there 
can be no thorough knowledge of an art, or great power 
to develop its resources, vrithout tracing its rules to the 

laws on v^hich they depend. 

f 
Every art stands in intimate relations with one or 

more sciences, that furnish the principles which govern 
and explain its operations. Every combination of 
machinery is to be understood by the mechanical powers 
employed — the measurements of carpentry by the solu- 
tions of geometry which they involve ; the enjoyments 
of poetry and oratory by the laws of the human mind 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

under which they arise. A single science, like that of 
chemistry, may render its aid to many arts, and a single 
art, like that of agriculture, may receive assistance from 
the most various forms of knowledge. Thought and 
action are inextricably interwoven, and sustain each 
other at a thousand points. 

The philosophy of an art is the reference of its rules 
to their appropriate principles. The mind is never sat- 
isfied till all its action becomes rational ; that is, till it 
has explained to itself the reasons on which it rests. 
The mind thus assumes that supervision and govern- 
ment which belong to it. Art is made amenable to 
science, and science tests its power by expounding and 
guiding art. 

Rhetoric is an art. It strives to render aid to action, 
to prescribe its methods. What is the action whose 
rules are furnished by rhetoric? It is the mind's action, 
we answer, in communicating itself, its thoughts, con- 
ceptions, feelings, through language. There has been 
a general tendency to limit rhetoric to direct address — 
oratory, so called. We cannot regard this as desirable, 
since, in that case, we must have an additional art to 
guide the mind in other forms of composition — an art, 
the body of whose precepts must be identical with those 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

already given in rhetoric. Expression of thought in 
language in all its varieties is but one department, 
governed by the same fundamental principles. The 
differences between the several forms of composition are 
those of species, rather than those of genera, giving rise 
to a varied adaptation of rules to something diverse, 
but not radically new, in methods or in ends. 

We define rhetoric as the art which teaches the rules 
of composition. By composition we understand the 
expression in language of thoughts, emotions, for some 
definite end. 

There are various arts and sciences subsidiary to 
rhetoric. Grammar gives- us Jhe rules by which the 
words of a language are united in a correct construc- 
tion. Logic tests the vahdity of the arguments em- 
ployed in address, and defines the form of sound 
judgments. Elocution guides in the delivery of dis- 
course, and enhances the impression secured by 
rhetoric. 

The philosophy of rhetoric is the reference of its rules 
to the principles of mental and moral science on which 
they are dependent. Mind expresses itself according to 
its own laws, toward its own ends. When affected 
from abroad, it is by the influence of mind — of those 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

for whom the composition is prepared. Whether com- 
position is sought as a means of expression or of per- 
suasion, its end is reached in mind, and mind gives the 
governing principles. 

The first step toward rhetoric is, as in other arts, 
practical — the use of language in communicating 
thought. Not till some literature has arisen under the 
art, can the art itself separately arise. Composition 
must be the object of criticism and correction. Men 
will seek guidance and skill only in that about which 
they are employed. The necessity of rules will not be 
felt, nor will that be present from which they may, by 
experience and observation, be drawn, till literature has 
accumulated the material of criticism. 

The second step toward rhetoric will be one of sep- 
aration and classification, by which the several forms of 
language and parts of composition are distinguished, 
the one from the other ; the figurative from the literal, 
the argumentative from the emotional. This analysis 
will give the terminology of the art, expressing the 
distinct features and forms of utterance which appear 
in the complex whole — composition. 

Different methods and separable parts are now open to 
observation ; their several effects become traceable ; and 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

the results of composition, favorable or unfavorable, are 
referred to this and that manner of presentation. The 
mind thus takes the third step — the formation of rules 
which treasure up and make most available the knowl- 
edge derived from experience. At this point, rhetoric 
as an art appears. It states and combines the rules 
which hterature in its progress has developed. The 
second and third steps alone strictly give an art ; the 
first is merej^ conditional for them. 

If rhetoric arises in the manner now pointed out, we 
see how erroneous is the idea that rules, when correctly 
applied, can hamper genius, or take away any just 
liberty. These rules are a concise general expression 
of the manner in which it has been found that 
past successes have been achieved. They have been 
arrived at by the study of the works of genius. Just 
rules are natural, not artificial. Nature, -powerful na- 
ture, genius, achieves success through its own spon- 
taneous apprehension of law. The method of this ac- 
tion — in the highest degree natural, since it is that 
of vigorous nature — now becomes a subject of in- 
quiry, and is expressed in a precept. This precept, 
within its own limits, if rightly established, genius 
cannot henceforward reject, since therein is defined the 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

manner of its own efforts. Nor can Nature reject it, 
since she alone has established it. Rules exist latently 
in all the powerful, successful movements of mind. 
Genius shows itself to be genius by the certainty and 
celerity with which it reaches and acts upon great prin- 
ciples ; by the precision and perfection with which it 
expresses the natural force that is in it. 

Rules, -precepts, arise from the desire to make our 
best efforts the guides of our future exertions ; to render 
the path opened by genius accessible to industry ; to 
shed' the light of inspired men and inspired moments 
over ordinary men and ordinary moments. It is equally 
false to affirm the complete success and thq^ complete 
failure of such efforts. Native power is indispensable ; 
acquired power is indisputable. The law which the 
first has established, the second may adopt, and in its 
adoption develop rapidly and to the utmost its resources. 
A life which is not vigorous enough to force growth 
against obstacles, may yet be nourished into healthful 
activity. An intellect which cannot strike out the best 
method, can yet naturally and successfully pursue it. 
Experience is a teacher, and her precepts, when rightly 
apprehended and adopted, become a truer nature than 
<4ie awkward, unkindly growth they displace. 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

It is a mistake to suppose that everything that has 
arisen without design is natural in any just use of the 
word, or that what arises from effort and discipline is 
artificial. The pugilist that strikes by a right rule, 
rightly applied, strikes most efficaciously, and most 
efficaciously because most natm-aUy. This naturalness, 
perchance, does not spring from his own nature, but 
belongs to the best physical formation in the highest 
execution of its power. What is most perfect in any 
form of life or action is most natural, most nearly the 
fulness of natural law ; that which is least perfect is 
least natm'al. All awkwardness, error, and imbecility are 
unnaiuraL however universal they may have become. 

There are two things requisite for the success of 
rules that aim to give pohshed power to action. They 
must spring from nature ; they must be incorporated 
into nature. While they must hit upon the natural, the 
right method, he who uses them must be so familiar 
with them, that his own native forces can find habitual, 
spontaneous expression under them. Art is, indeed, 
no substitute for force, thought, life ; but it can develop 
native and acquired powers into a strength and sym- 
metry of form not otherwise attainable. A true rule, 
springing from the most perfect expression of the most 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

perfect nature, must be incorporated into the mind, 
must become a part of it, unconsciously guiding its ac- 
tion ; must be ingrafted upon it as a higher and better 
nature than its own. 

All just disparagement of art has arisen from its be- 
coming artificial; that is, from its separation as a dead 
form from the life which it was designed to express. 
No perfection of form that is vitalized by adequate 
energies can be amiss. Rhetoric shapes what science in 
all its departments has furnished. It cannot go beyond 
its material ; it is enough if it make the most of this 
material. Art comes in for the guidance of power, and 
can do little till this, the condition of its action, is fur- 
nished. Fine art always implies a culture radical and 
broad, of which it is the expression, and in fault of this 
can be but the merest surface work. 

This third step being taken, by which rhetoric is 
reached as a system of rules, there remains a fourth — 
the explanation of these rules through the principles on 
which they dep^d. This is properly the philosophy of 
rhetoric. Rules, especially those which govern the 
mind's action, are more easily and freely obeyed when 
their true force is seen. We shall strive, therefore, to 
ground our art in nature by referring all its precepts to 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

the principles which give them validity. We shall thus 
not only know what we are to do, but why we are to do 
it ; have a reason rendered from nature as well^ as from 
experience ; and enlarge and strengthen our practical 
results by our theoretical conclusions. We shall present 
the art in three parts — its ends, its means, its methods ; 
thus answering the three questions. What do we pursue? 
By what means ? In what manner ? 



PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC 



BOOK I. 

CHAPTER I. 

DEPARTMENTS OF COMPOSITION. 

No composition is aimless, not even soliloquy. If it 
were aimless, there could be no criticism, no excellence, 
no rules guiding its structure, since these imply that some 
end is to be reached, some right method to be employed. 
Composition, in all the forms in which it adds itself 
either to the labor or literature of the world, pursues 
some appreciable end, and thus lays itself open to criti- 
cism as right or wrong in its object, right or wrong in 
its method. i§o obvious is this, that we need not dwell 
upon it. Any composition absolutely without an end 
must be without connection, without meaning. There 
is some method even iil madness. 

The three leading ends of composition are defined by 
the three divisions of man's intellectual powers — under- 

(21) 



22 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

standing, emotions, and will. Truth to be adduced and 
established, or to be conveyed, feeling to be uttered, the 
purposes of men to be shaped, are each the objects of 
literary effort. Address, usiog the term broadly, may 
find its object in the understanding, in the emotions, 
or in the will. The philosophical essay does its chief 
work in the intellect. Its connections are logical, its 
conclusions those of the understanding. The poegn 
springs from the heart, and acts upon the heart. Its 
excellency is tested by the character and scope of the 
emotions which it arouses. It has reached its end when 
men are moved to a just appreciation of its beauty and 
sentiment. The oration, when clothed in power, when 
possessed of its true generic character, moves men to 
action ; is satisfied with no conclusions, is content with 
no feelings which do not issue in the desired effect. 
Oratory seeks to sweep through the whole man, to bind 
him to a purpose, and press him on in a career. 

Language is so governed by the form of composition, 
and has so little reference to its intrinsic character, that 
any production is termed poetry which bears its external 
mark of metre. All productions destitute of this are 
hurriedly grouped as prose ; while every composition 
which chances to be spoken is indifferently styled an 
oration. A more philosophical classification, if not a 
more convenient one, woidd distinguish prose, poetry, 



DEPARTMENTS OF COMPOSITION. 23 

and oratory according to their subject matter, whether 
addressed to the thoughts, emotions, or will of man. 
With these divisions, we have much under the poetical 
garb which is not poetry ; much spqken which does not 
belong to oratory ; much in a prose form which is im- 
pregnate with a true poetical fire. We do not insist 
on these divisions. They serve a profitable end in 
thought, if not always regarded in language. 

There are three departments of composition in their 
typical forms stril£ingly distinct ; and though, as in 
almost all vital products, the shore-marks of division 
may neitlfer be always straight nor well defined, the mind 
is greatly aided in its grasp of things by a recognition 
of those outstanding features, those prominent peaks 
from which the sloping sides, ultimately meeting on 
common ground, take their departure. Prose, the 
province of the understanding ; poetry, of passion ; ora- 
tory, of the whole man gathered and uttered in volition, 
— become, in view of the effect sought, the three great 
forms of composition, each possessed of fundamental 
characteristics. 

The logical order of address, in its transition through 
the understanding, the emotions, and the will, is that in 
which they are here placed. Emotion is conditioned on 
apprehension, volition on emotion. We first see, then 
feel, and afterward act. The passions, 'aside from the 



24 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOEIC. 

grosser appetites, are not accessible save through the 
intellect, nor the will save through the passions. In 
the passions, emotions, we here include the moral sen- 
timents. There is no direct address to the sensibilities 
or to the will. I can exhort a man at once to think on 
the topic offered, but not, with propriety, to feel or will 
concerning it. Emotion and volition must depend for 
their character on the character and relations of the 
topic, and these must be presented as the indispensable 
condition of feeling and action. Presentation is first, 
is immediate, and this is to the intellect ; emotion fol- 
lows the presence of the appropriate object ; and voli- 
tion is subsequent to both. 

A pure address to the understanding, however, is 
very different from one which passes like light through 
the lens of thought, only to be lodged with its warmth 
in the emotions. The one presents truth for its own 
sake ; the other, for the feelings which it is fitted to 
arouse. In the one case, the topic and treatment are 
chosen in reference to the elucidation of truth ; in the 
other, in reference to their power over the heart. For 
the one purpose, they are thoughtful ; for the other, 
passionate and poetical. 

A kindred diversity exists between those forms of ad- 
dress which terminate respectively in the passions and 
will. Some feelings leave the mind wrapped in emo- l\\ 



DEPARTMENTS OF COMPOSITION. 25 

tion — lost in the beauty, pathos, or grandeur of the 
accompanying conception. Others hurry it on to action ; 
the theme fills the mind with indignation or with 
desire, and thus drives it along the path of gratification. 
It is these different relations of emotions to the mind 
itself, and its active powers, which determine the result, 
and leave the theme, now lodged in the affections of the 
man, and now, as passing words of exhortation, lost in 
his life. 

Though the logical relation of man's faculties is that 
now pointed out, their order in individual and historical 
development is somewhat different. The emotional 
nature is earlier aroused than the intellectual, and hence 
poetry, its natural expression, precedes prose. The 
passions, quickening and quickened by the imagination, 
incite physical effort, make life adventurous, anticipate 
the judgment, outstrip systematic thought, and, with 
no more of the intellectual element than is involved in 
the presentation of appropriate objects, inflame the mind 
with heroic verse. 

The emotions, though, indeed, reached through the 
understanding, are roughly and strongly shaken before 
any clear light is shed through the mind, or any strong 
pleasure experienced in its more refined action. Many 
are ready to insist, that the passions in the outset move 
us only the more strongly from the murky intellectual 
! 2 ' 



26 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

medium in which their subjects are presented, and the 
great predominance of sensible over intelligible objects. 
We would rather say, that in its early periods emotion 
is more rude and demonstrative, not more strong, than 
in its later periods. 

Oratory, especially in its first forms, is more closely 
alKed to the emotions than the*thoughts, and hence has 
followed quickly upon poetry. It seeks also a practical 
end, — an immediate influence fo be exerted on human 
action, — and has, therefore, an advantage over the more 
remote and abstract aims of thought. 

A thorough and logical development of the intellect, 
a search after truth and satisfaction in it, are among 
the later steps of mental progress ; yet these, once taken, 
react strongly on poetry and oratory, and impart to 
them a new character. While the movement of mind, 
though substantial, is yet crude and incomplete, it may 
tend to render both poetry and oratory somewhat formal 
and barren, to restrict them to its own didactic method ; 
but when culture becomes deep, rich, and productive, 
its emotional products will be more profoundly passion- 
ate than those of any previous period ; more just and 
symmetrical, they will also be thoroughly vital. Not 
till the mind has worked its way through the periods 
of scepticism and destruction into those of belief and 
construction, out from uncertainty and doubt into hearty . 



DEPARTMENTS OP COMPOSITION. 27 

faith and advocacy, will the emotions claim and fulfil 
their highest part in the progress of man. The stream 
of human life does not run shallow as we advance. 
The most profoundly emotional truths committed to the 
mind, like morning stars, appear late above its horizon. 
In the fullest discipline of the human mind, therefore, 
we seem to return to the order first presented, in which 
a delicately, broadly, profoundly apprehensive intellect 
stands at the threshold of human faculties. 



28 PHILOSOPHY OP KHETORIC. 



CHAPTER n. 

PROSE. 

Prose, as distinguished both from poetry and ora- 
tory, arises in the service of the understanding ; it is 
the storehouse of knowledge, of the processes and 
results of thought. It has the double office of estab- 
lishing and imparting truth. In the one case, convic- 
tion is secured ; in the other, information is imparted. 
The one process opposes itself to error, the other to 
ignorance. Argument is the means employed by the 
first, statement by the second. 

These distinctions, often just, seem lost again in the 
fullest form of proof. Indisputable scientific proposi- 
tions are stated in themselves, and in their proof, as 
things of knowledge, not of controversy. Argument 
differs from proof in implying unbelief to be combated, 
a proposition to be established against the tacit or 
avowed opposition of certain persons. Proof is ar- 
ranged with sole reference to interior logical connec- 
tions, while argument contemplates these in connection 



PROSE. 29 

with that phase of belief it would controvert, and the 
persons it would convince. 

The chief connections of facts, as simple unexplained 
facts, are those of place and time. The rendering of 
them, under the first of these relations, is description; 
under the second, is narrative. History rests chiefly on 
the last. While prose describes and narrates princi- 
pally for the facts themselves, it justly strives to render 
them in their real, their living force, though at this 
point the emotional elements of poetry indirectly enter. 

The connections of things as grouped and explained 
by the mind are resemblance and cause and effect. 
These two are the scientific links of thought, and are 
chiefly employed in philosophical prose. Objects are 
treated according to their inherent and permanent agree- 
ments, or their causal dependence one on another ; and 
these substantial connections of things become the for- 
mal connections of thought. Science and philosophy 
rest on these relations, and here prose is severely true 
to itsdf. 

There is a connection, an involution of ideas, inde- 
pendent of things, by which the one contains or includes 
the other. This gives play to deduction, in each of its 
steps demonstrative. Interior, logical connections only 
are considered, and by these are successively unfolded 
the minor truths of some pregnant major premise. Thus 



30 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOEIC. 

from a few simple notions are evolve^ the many propo- 
sitions of geometry. Here, most of all, is prose na- 
kedly true to the relations of thought. 

The form of prose composition which is most anoma- 
lous, unless it be the degenerate prose drama, is the 
novel. The novel is in its aim poetical. It has chiefly 
to do with emotion, and especially with that of love. 
It presents life on the side of its affections and passions, 
and makes information and influence subordinate to this 
end. The moral aim or effect of the composition is 
involved in the narrative, not evolved from it, or 
enforced or illustrated by it. A segment of life, just or 
fanciful, is presented, and the reader is left to the natu- 
ral effect of the principles of morality contained in it. 
The tale may show its prose character by relaxing into 
discussion and criticism, but these are aside from its 
proper office. The early romances were chiefly, almost 
exclusively, metrical, and the modern novel seems to be 
a prose poem — a transitional form between depart- 
ments in their typical products quite distinct. * 

In prose the form of the expression is shaped exclu- 
sively by the exigencies of the thought, and admits of 
as much variety, and as many modifications,, as this will 
suffer. In poetry and oratory, impression being pre- 
eminent, a variety of things may enter into the product, 
may concur with and enhance its impression on the erao- 



PUOSE. 81 

tions. In prose, the mind alone being addressed, any 
adjunct of metre, anything granted to the form merely, 
serves to distract the attention and weaken the thought. 
A measured flow of syllables thus becomes in prose 
a blemish. The harmony of alliteration, when em- 
ployed, must indicate a kindred harmony of ideas, and 
arise as an undesigned coincidence. An antithesis of 
words is only justified by the antithesis of the thought. 
The emotions are influenced by harmony, by concur- 
rence of impressions. The intellect seeks distinction, 
division, single and explicit statement. Therefore 
thought, as thought, accepts no method which to it 
would be either constraint or distraction. The rule 
softens as the aim of prose becomes more inclusive, 
adding pleasure to instruction. 



PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 



CHAPTER in. 

POETKY. 

CoNTEAEY to the usual method, we shall treat rhet- 
oric as inclusive of all forms of composition ; since no 
one form can be understood without apprehending its 
relations to the remaining forms ; since each mode rests 
on essentially the same principles, and employs the same 
means, modified by the particular end proposed ; since 
the three departments of expression are complementary 
divisions under one general movement, the communica- 
tion of mind to mind through language. 

Poetry arises from the interchange of emotion, emo- 
tion expressed for its own sake, with no ulterior refer- 
ence to action. Feeling is aroused and nourished in 
man by the things and movements about him. Beauty, 
objects of hope and apprehension, of affection and aver- 
sion, reward and retribution, stir powerfully the human 
soul, and force its emotions into language. The mind 
is first and chiefly moved through sensible objects, and 
under their forms continues to present its feelings. The 
imagery of the imagination gathers in its procession 



POETRY. 83 

• 

things sublime and terrible, beautiful and joyful, homely 
and mirthful, and the heart is by turns awed with a sol- 
emn pageant, saddened with a dark retinue, cheered 
with a sportive troop, or made merry with a mock 
carnival. 

The emotions, ever varying in character and depth, 
are prane to utterance, to seek the sympathy, the reali- 
zation, and extension of language, and hence have given 
rise to this most adequate and full medium of expression 
— poetry. Poetry, in its perfect type, its strictly charac- 
teristic form, is emotional conception expressed in met- 
rical language. The substance and life of poetry is 
feeling; its peculiar and appropriate form -is rhythm. 
The latter affords 'the more convenient, but not the more 
important distinction. Poetry properly demands them 
both. 

There is no limit but that of the emotions to the sub- 
ject matter of poetry, and no restrictions on its metrical 
forms but the possibilities of language. The more 
extended and weighty the feeling, the less it will cumber 
itself with the demands of form. This is seen in the 
themes appropriafe to blank verse, and in the constant 
tendency of humor and satire to rhyme. The more brief 
and isolated the emotion, the more intricate and care- 
fully wrought out the measure. The stones of which 
a temple is reared are individually treated slightly. 



34 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

The stone of which a brooch is made is wrought into 
some rare and exquisite form. An intricate and perfect 
rhythm, if long continued, wearies more than plainer 
verse. There is a fitness between emotion and metrical 
language which makes the latter the almost necessary 
yehicle of the former. To repeat a song is not to ren- 
der it ; to state an emotion, or speak of its object, is not 
to express it. The passions of men have always sought, 
as their most copious utterance, song, — poetry united 
to music, — and will not readily part, on any plea, with 
the remnant of this association — metre. Music and 
metre are as much the elocution of poetry as emphasis 
and gesture of oratory. As emotion is the great modu- 
lator of the voice, by inversion sound becomes a chief 
medium of emotion ; and passionate composition — poetry 
— looks to it for aid. Feeling is often contained more in 
the tone than in the word, and can never divorce itself 
from this, its most natural expression, nor stand in the 
same undefined relation to it as prose. Poetry searches 
for all the avenues of emotion, arouses the senses, and 
in its flow of sounds soothes, saddens, or quickens the 
soul. This vocal form is the natural outgrowth of 
feeling. 

Poetry receives character and value from the natm-e 
of the emotions which gave rise to it, and which it is 
fitted to impart. The more common divisions of poetry 



POETRY. 85 

have little reference one to another, and rest their dis- 
tinctions now on subject matter, now on form. Epic 
and drama, ode and sonnet, furnish convenient designa- 
tions for ordinary speech, but do not spring from any 
systematic apprehensif)n of the subjects of poetry ; nor 
do they, save in single features, define its field. We 
need to see the cardinal divisions of the emotions, that 
we may therein find the offices and relations of poetry. 
The most profound impulses, as well as the most simple 
and sensible pleasures of the soul, are realized in verse. 
The oration is a weapon carefully shaped for an imme- 
diate and explicit purpose ; the poem is a germ contain- 
ing within itself, and for itself, the full-balanced forces 
of one form^of emotional Kfe — a life with which dis- 
semination is an interior necessity. Poetry, occupied 
with conceptions which arise under feeling, and are by 
it perfected into beauty, becomes a fine art, and belongs, 
by generic features to rhetoric, by individual character- 
istics to esthetics. 



PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 



CHAPTER W. 

ORATORY. 

Oratory diiFers from the forms of composition al- 
ready mentioned in its end, and consequently in its 
relations and means. Oratory proposes an immediate 
eifect — in some way to guide or govern action. As 
that mental state which results in action is completed in 
volition, oratory aims to affect the will. Thought is 
not elaborated for its own sake, nor emotioj^ aroused for 
itself, but only to be immediately employed in persua- 
sion — in deciding the state of the will. 

The means and method appropriate are determined by 
this practical end of immediate influence, and all that 
is merely philosophical or poetical, occupying without 
constraining the mind, becomes inefficacious ^nd wrong. 
Thoughts and emotions are considered only in their 
bearings on the proposed action, and are made, with 
light and heat, to converge at this point as a perfect 
focus. . The mind must be convinced, but convinced of 
the value and practicability of the action proposed ; the 
heart must be aroused, but aroused to the motives of 



ORATORY. o i 

duty, profit, and pleasure which press upon it. By true 
oratory the whole soul is thrown into a single current, 
setting outward toward effort, — this effort becoming 
more protracted and thorough in proportion to the deep 
and inclusive character of the desired end. The highest 
oratory can only be called forth when the energies of 
the whole nature, with its fundamental forces, moral 
and religious, are to be aroused, and to be determined 
in the permanent direction of holy living. 

As a further result of this outward end, oratory is 
thrown into relations wholly diverse from those of 
poetry and philosophy. The philosopher, the poet, are 
abstracted, the one by his thought, the other by his 
conception, %om all other objects. Everything aside 
from the one thing in hand is foreign, is alien, to the 
idea, and to the mind occupied with it. The thought is 
governed by its own logical relations, the emotion arises 
with its own sympathetic connections, and therefore the 
work of composition proceeds by separation — by render- 
ing an individual thing in its individual way. The 
success of the labor is dependent on this interior de- 
velopment of the thing treated. The orator, on the 
other hand, considers not more the intrinsic power of 
the theme than its relations to those whose action he 
purposes to influence by it. The last is with him the 
controlling consideration. The truth, like iron, must be 



38 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

« 

shaped into an instrument wherewith to accomplish most 
perfectly and quickly a given work. It is with him as 
with the agriculturist, whose task is assigned under 
given conditions of soil and climate ; not to subject all 
his efforts to these is immediate and utter failure. The 
oration grows up under a vital power not less than the 
poem ; but in the last we mark the native force and 
fulness of a life freely developed, like a plant in an 
open and rich field ; in the first we note how this and 
that favoring and unfavoring circumstance have modified 
the tree, pushing its way with persistent power among 
its fellows, and gathering nutriment, sunlight, and air 
as it was able. The oration is the complex product of 
exterior and interior force, not the peaceAil product of 
the last only. That which here rules the form, which 
defines and explains it, is the exigency of the circum- 
stances under which it has arisen. A given audience, 
through whom a given end ii to be reached, is the ever- 
present and controlKng thought of the orator. He may 
not withdraw into speculation, or at the beck of imagi- 
nation turn aside to the retreats of beauty. He has no 
privacy, but is ever haunted by that sea of faces, whose 
surface is the condensed utterance of many human' 
hearts. His is no single conflict; a host is to be 
met, and with no other weapon than that of his theme : 
in the same instant and by the same action, he is to 



ORATORY. 39 

reacli and vanquish .each individual, trenched as he may- 
be in dulness and inanity, trenched as he may be in 
prejudice and passion. The relations, therefore, of the 
orator to the audience and the theme become vital 
considerations. * 

A poem is the metrical utterance of emotion ; philo- 
sophical prose, a logical statement of thought ; while 
oratory is just and impassioned persuasion, the legitimate 
influencino' of the will through both the understandino- 
and the feelings. If either of tljese elements is want- 
ing, if the passion is irrational, or the reason unimpas- 
sioned, there is no eloquence. 

The leading divisions of oratory arise firom diversity 
of ends. The orator seeks to secure action under cer-- 
tain principles of human conduct. He does not origi- 
nate impulses, but shows the relation of lines of effort 
to the native impulses of the mind. The person per- 
suaded is impelled by his own desires, the speaker pre- 
senting the object and opening up the way through which 
these are to be Ratified. The oration will receive its 
character from the character of the constitutional force 
of w^hich it avails itself in securing effort, from the idea 
to which it addresses and unites its argument. 

The chief original inapulses which supply the im- 
pelling power in human action, are right, interest, and 
pleasure. The first of these is wholly peculiar ; the last 



40 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

two are more closely related. The sense of right is in 
all men simple and original, and enters into the compe- 
tition of motives with its own native force. With self- 
affirmed and incontrovertible authority, it claims to 
restrain, quicken, and guide all action. It is, in the 
order of man's constitution, the only independent, always 
just, always present impulse, and therefore it alone can 
rightly order the whole field of action, and give that 
vigor and that proportion of parts which are just. 

The emotions which directly sustain and enforce the 
right are an antecedent sense of obligation, and, subse- 
quent to the action, the feelings of approval, or of 
guilt, of shame and remorse. Indirectly, the affections 
also strengthen the right, as they themselves are nom- 
ished by it. These are disinterested, and only arise in 
full force in connection with virtue. Once present, 
they strongly animate the mind, and render its obedi- 
ence spontaneous and cheerful. They enforce virtue by 
the enjoyments which they bring. They are reverence, 
love, benevolence, pity, gratitude, indignation, scorn, 
according to the character and condition of the person 
drawing them forth. The word "love" has come to 
cover a great variety of feelings, but more specifically 
applies to moral affection. Any or all these feelings 
may be called forth as the grounds of moral action. 

Pleasure and interest present motives of action of 



ORATORY. 41 

another class, legitimate or illegitimate, according as 
they are retained within or transcend the limits assigned 
them by morality. Ultimately both of these rest on the 
appetites and .passions for impulse. Our appetites are 
most immediate inlets of pleasure, and hence, in the 
anticipation and provision which they require, most 
obvious incentives to action. Nor are they exclusively 
those of the body. The love of truth and of beauty 
are essentially of this nature. These tastes of the mind, 
like appetites, furnish a direct motive to action. 

The passions are distinguished from the affections 
in having perpetual reference to self; in finding at 
this point the spring of feeling ; and in the sudden 
and complete control which they often attain. Though 
social, they are, as far as the good of others is con- 
cerned, either indifferent or malevolent. Of the first 
class are vanity, pride, 'contempt. Vanity and pride, 
from their religious use, convey almost exclusively 
censure, and are applied only to the stronger feelings 
of their class, whije self-love and self-respect mark the 
milder exercise of the same emotions. We use the one 
term to cover all degrees of satisfaction in view of the 
admiration to be elicited by one's possessions or accom- 
plishments ; the other, all degrees of esteem in which 
one holds himself. So used, it is obvious they mark 
very powerful and persuasive feelings, furnishing con- 



42 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

stant motives to action. Indeed, vanity and pride lie 
at the very root of interested effort. The malevolent 
passions, arising from some disturbance of self by 
another, are anger, hatred, envy, jealousy. To urge 
any action by its immediate relation to appetite or 
passion, is to appeal to pleasure. 

More frequently, however, the gratification is remote. 
Means to be secured by labor intervene, and toward 
them the effort is directed. These means call forth 
desire — a feeling differing in the object toward which 
it is directed, but in its nature the same. The mind 
is not indifferent to the things which afford gratification, 
but is thrown by them, one and all, into a state of 
desire. These means to ulterior pleasure which call 
forth the desires are wealth, power, position, and 
knowledge. There are other things whose presence 
is a condition of our enjoyment, as life and society, 
and are, therefore, said to be objects of desire. They, 
however, stand in a different relation to desire from 
the four former. These are the constant objects of 
effort, the immediate and pervasive motives of action. 
An action springing from any one of them is said to be 
interested, since it seeks means which may afford 
pleasure. These desires sometimes become so intense, 
so overlook the end in view, as to be termed passions. 
Of this nature is avarice. There are also passions 



ORATORY. 43 

directly aroused by the relations of objects to desire, as 
joy, sorrow, hope, fear, disappointment, regret. Mo- 
tives drawn from the desires, or the passions immediately 
dependent on them, are those of interest ; and from one 
of the three sources of action, right, 'pleasure, and 
interest, all motives must be taken. The higher may 
include the lower motive, or the lower may strengthen 
the higher, or there may be a present conflict between 
them. 

The highest form of eloquence is evidently that which 
most thoroughly and deeply searches the human heart 
for motives resulting in the broadest and most valuable 
action. So judged, that oratory which acts on the 
moral impulses, and seeks to change character, is 
preeminent. Here the end is most inclusive — the trans- 
formation of the w^hole man, the government of all 
action by the pervasive law of right. No purpose can 
be more profound than this. The impulses to which 
the orator trusts are tliose of conscience and the affec- 
tions, the holiest portions of our nature. In the great- 
ness of the work and the weight of the motives, no 
persuasion can surpass that which enforces virtue. As 
the moral affections are chiefly aroused by religion, as 
virtue has only been persistently and successfully en- 
forced in connection witl^ tlie Christian religion, this 
kind of oratory*has been termed that of the pulpit. 



44 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

The moral nature, in the duties which it imposes in 
our relations to God, gives rise to religion, and virtue 
becomes holiness. The moral law cannot fail, if rightly 
apprehended, to extend itself to, and enforce, religion ; 
and the facts -of religion, in turn, cannot fail to throw 
about all moral duties new sanctions, and to evolve 
minor obhgations in their natural dependence from the 
chief obligation — that of man to God. Revelation en- 
larges the sphere of conscience, not by arbitrary com- 
mands, but by bringing to light new and fundamental 
facts, in themselves inclusive of old duties, and imposing 
fresh ones. Religion of necessity thus involves and 
includes the highest morality ; because its peculiar in- 
junctions are, in their consequences, more weighty than 
any other ; because the minor duties of man to man it 
enforces from a new and higher stand-point, a broader 
apprehension of the relations from which they spring, 
and the results to which they lead ; and because in its 
own promises and threatenings, and the power with^ 
which it arouses the affections, it adopts and reinvigor- 
ates the moral law. There thus arises sacred eloquence, 
— the eloquence oi a Christian pulpit, — immeasurably 
superior in the motives and emotions with which it 
urges the mind and heart. The immediate conse- 
quences of virtue and vice are lost in their more per- 
manent results ; the breadth of eternity is given to 



ORATORY. 45 

action ; the grace of God stoops to bless man to his 
utmost capacity ; the justice of God walls in and pur- 
sues his transgressions. In weight, terror, sublimity, 
joy, and hope, no motives can for an instant compare 
with those which in sacred eloquence inspire and over- 
power the mind. Virtue is caught up and inwrapped with 
the ineiFable glory of God ; the virtuous man is caught 
up and inwrapped in the glory of an incarnate Christ. 
Armed as is this oratory with weapons of celestial 
temper, it has utmost occasion for them all. If sacred 
oratory is great in its theme, great also are the difficul- 
ties which it has to overcome. It opposes itself not to 
isolated actions, but to the very current of conduct. It 
proposes to reach the whole life, and shape it from its 
very centre ; to re-beget the man into truth and love. 
Indifference strengthening into aversion is to be met ; 
the ear is to be won ; the intellect to be convinced ; the 
heart to be convicted ; and the religious nature so 
aroused and inspired, that it can cast down and rule 
the long dominant impulses of the soul. Yet the chief 
obstacle to success is in the mind of the orator himself. 
He is ever liable to lose conviction, to share the spirit 
which he is to correct, and to try with unsubstantial and 
inoperative ideas to exorcise the spirit of unbelief. 
There is no oratory whose whole power depends so 
much on its inspiration as this, since it seeks to issue 



46 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

in vitalizing truth. God must breathe into its nostrils 
the breath of life, that it may become a living soul. 

How wholly sacred oratory is the offspring of the 
Christian religion is seen in the fact, that the demonstra- 
tive oration of the ancients, which most nearly cor- 
responds to it, is ever liable to sink out of the depart- 
ment of eloquence by lacking an immediate practical end. 
A eulogy, a presentation of character, is not strictly 
oratory, save as it oversteps the limits of praise, and 
holds up for instruction the conduct presented ; save as 
it condenses into motive the narrative of an illustrious 
life, and presses the hearer from idle admiration to 
active emulation. The difficulty with which it reaches 
a practical end, and the facihty with which, in the 
symmetry of an artistic labor, it loses itself, separate 
this form of oratory very far from sacred eloquence. 
It belongs rather to those transitional, doubtful products, 
which, indeed, retain oral delivery, but lack the essential 
feature of strict address — its hold on action. 

The interests and pleasures of men furnish the de- 
partment of secular eloquence. These, as motives of 
action, are intimately related, the difference between 
them being chiefly one of time. What contributes to 
our present interest or advantage is expected to con- 
tribute to our future pleasure. It is an anticipated 
enjoyment which imparts present value to objects whose 
possession is coveted. 



OEATOIiY. ' 47 

Address contemplates an audience, an assembly of 
individuals, to be influenced by common considerations. 
This address may aim at individual action or at joint 
action ; at the action of man as man under his individ- 
ual responsibilities, or at those joint measures by which 
communities and associations determine and regulate 
their conduct. In the first case, oratory will be almost 
wholly of a moral or sacred .character, and belong to 
the type already spoken of; in the second case, it will 
be chiefly of a secular character, the expediency and wis- 
dom of a proposed measure being the object of discus- 
sion. It is only the moral and religious impulses, 
which, fundamentally the same in all, need to be aroused 
and directed by oratory — to be called forth for the gov- 
ernment of the life. Individual pleasure and interest 
are so diverse in the lines of conduct which they secure, 
as to allow little except instruction furnishing general 
principles for their guidance ; are so prompt and exces- 
sive in their action, as to require little aside from the 
restraint and government of the moral nature. Virtue, 
therefore, in its individual forms, as temperance, — in its 
collective and most authoritative forms, as religion, — 
becomes the controlling, the well nigh exclusive motive 
of all oratory, which seeks to influence man in his 
strictly personal life. This form of address, having to 
do with that which is sacred in man, — with virtue, — 



48 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

partakes, in all its branches, of the character, and is 
subject to the laws, of its fullest type — pulpit oratory. 
While the interests and pleasure of the individual fall 
out of oratory, and become questions of private pur- 
suit, those interests which are reached or protected by 
the joint action of men afford points of grave delibera- 
tion. The law of right still remains as a governing 
principle, by which all action should be restrained ; but 
the question is constantly arising, What, within the 
limits assigned by moral law, do the interests of the 
community demand? What, within the constitutional 
law of man's nature, should become civil law? This 
question is propounded again and again in each or- 
ganic assembly, from the highest legislative body to the 
low^est, and in each it is to be answered on principles 
of general advantage. It is points of common interest, 
and not of individual morality, which are committed to 
legislation, and it is in its relations to the first that the 
second is discussed. In the pulpit, on the other hand, 
the first is treated in its bearings on the second. Here 
secular distinguishes itself broadly from sacred elo- 
quence. It has to do with the life, the action, of the 
community, as opposed to the life, the action, of the 
individual. This is strictly private, of no moment, 
save as, leaving its province, it dkectly affects that 
which is public — the safety and temporal well-being 



ORATORY. 49 

of others, the well-being of government. Sacred elo- 
quence, on the other hand, penetrates at once the pri- 
vacy of the individual heart, and laboring here, only 
shows itself indirectly, though most efficiently, in ques- 
tions of social and political concernment. The highest 
legislative body W4)rks within man's original native 
rights ; the lowest, within these, and also within those 
further regulations established and defined by superior 
civil law. Alhed to these are the questions which 
occupy every deliberative body, from the most perma- 
nent corporate association to the most transient popular 
meeting. Even a religious body, as a body, is occu- 
pied with questions of prudence and vdsdom — of the 
judicious choice of means. 

Deliberative eloquence is one of the long-recognized 
departments of oratory. As contrasted with pulpit ora- 
tory, its advantages are found in the singleness and ex- 
plicitness of the action proposed, and the spontaneous 
interest which it usually calls forth ; its inferiority in the 
relatively narrow, though weighty, motives wdth which 
it presses the heart. 

"What faith and love are to sacred oratory, liberty, 
public weal, and patriotism are to secular oratory. 
Much will be left to the deliberation of men in a free 
government, little in a tyrannical. Oratory will become 
a most coveted and just instrument of influence in legis- 
3 D 



60 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

lative and popular assemblies, when these are them- 
selves the source of power. Freedom gives play to 
action, and action may then be controlled by the just, 
the natural law of persuasion. The mass-meeting, the 
hall, and the senate chamber have not existed without a 
vast influence on oratory in our own country. 

A subsidiary, and, in the form in which it now exists, 
a most peculiar, type of eloquence is that of the bar. 
Law established is yet to be applied. To determine 
what is law, and what are the facts on which it is to be 
administered, requires much investigation and discrimi- 
nation. This, in a trial had before a limited bench of 
learned judges, resolves itself into an almost exclusively 
logical process, and, losing the emotional element, ceases 
to be oratory. Occasionally, however, the judge, in 
setting aside or establishing precedents, is for the time 
being a legislator ; broad and weighty motives of general 
interest may be urged upon the mind, and the plea 
become a most thoughtful, yet impassioned, product. 

In the trial by jury, more of the popular element is 
preserved ; and though the question is here strictly one 
of facts, of proof, and therefore somewhat severe and 
barren, the orator easily steals away from the legal evi- 
dence and character of the act to its social effects and 
dj'amatic bearings. The plea thus often becomes more 
emotional than it of right ought to be, and the moral 



ORATORY. 51 

law of oratory, which regulates the just influence of 
mind over mind, is in a measure set aside. The judge 
and jury being by oath and by common integrity bound 
to the line of legal, of just action, there is given to evi- 
dence and argument, in judicial oratory, a preponderance 
which does not belong to them in the symmetrical ora- 
tion. Persuasion is in many forms positively imperti- 
nent, since it implies a want of integrity in those to 
whom it is addressed. 

To escape as far as may be the dulness of demonstra- 
tioai, and yet, on the one hand, not fall into the impro- 
priety of a popular harangue, nor, on the other, employ 
surreptitious motives, becomes the difficult task of the 
advocate. Ancient judicial eloquence was quite different 
from modern, through the unsettled laws, and the num- 
ber and popular character of the judges ; it was appro- 
priately, therefore, a more impassioned appeal. 

The chief divisions of oratory, according as individual 
or collective action is aimed at, are sacred and secular. 
The chief form of secular oratory is deliberative. In 
modern society, in the application of law, occasion is 
given for a second and restricted form — that of judicial 
oratory. There is a large and increasing class of lec- 
tures, addresses, orations, which may not seem readily 
to fall into any of the above divisions. Many of these 
80 lack the force and form of address, or are so strictly 



52 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

didactic, as not to belong to oratory. A large number 
aim to affect the moral state of the individual, to inspire 
philanthropy, patriotism, a love of excellence, or a 
regard for truth. These derive their incentives from the 
moral nature, and direct themselves to it, and hence 
belong to the class of sacred oratory. Many preach 
besides those who profess to. A smaller class of casual 
speeches, proposing some social or associate action, 
belong to the class of deliberative o.rations. 



BOOK II 



The means of composition which we now proceed to 
discuss are of two kinds — the very material, the thought, 
the feehng, which the mind furnishes, and the language, 
which gives shape to it. These two stand to each other 
in the relation of substance and form, and we must 
know the nature of the one, and the laws which govern 
the other, before we can advantageously employ them. 
Few will hesitate to speak of language as a means, 
something to be employed in composition, and therefore 
to be studied in its rhetorical laws and relations, while 
a knowledge of its construction and grammatical prin- 
ciples is presupposed. It will not, however, seem so 
plain that the subject matter of composition, the argu- 
ment and emotion employed, should be regarded as 
means. This use of language is applicable to oratory, 
rather than to poetry or philosophy. 

The oration, having in view an immediate external 

(53)' 



54 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

end, must select from its resources that vvhich shall be 
to it the means of present success. The essay, the 
poem, on the other hand, aiming to present what is 
already contained in the mind and the emotions, have 
occasion for a right method, but not for a choice of 
means, since the truths, the conception to be presented, 
are both end and means. In philosophy, argument is 
not the instrument of an advocate, wielded for a pur- 
pose, opening a way toward an ulterior object, but' is 
the unfolding of inherent connections and intrinsic rela- 
tions, by which we come to see things as they are. 
Vision is here aimed at, and the eye is directed along 
the line of exposition and argument as the vista of 
truth. Truth is only known when known in itself and 
in its premises : the premises are more a portion of it 
than a means to it. It is not belief, but the grounds of 
belief, that philosophy inculcates. The ends and means, 
therefore, are the same ; and while it requu'es perspicuity 
of presentation, the thought in hand furnishes the limit 
and substance of its labor. The same is true of poetry. 
Its emotions are not means, but ends ; not necessities, but 
indulgences ; not the straight lines of effort, but the 
iddying circuits of pleasure. 

Our first inquiries, therefore, must have chief refer- 
ence to oratory, since this alone aims directly at influ- 
ence, and needs alone to seek directly its means. 



THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 55 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 

While man has an individual life, complete in itself, 
the development and fulness of that life are most strictly 
dependent on his social connections. The bud of the 
vine has latent within it the entire power of its species ; 
yet no bud blossoms or bears the clustering grapes, 
except as it is one of a community of buds, receiving 
nourishment from a common stock. The mature fruit 
of the tree is not reached by divided, but by com-, 
pounded life. It is borne aloft on trunk and branches, 
the growth of years, and nourished by the associated 
life of which it is but a feeble portion. Thus is it with 
man. Man alone is a savage : one in the community 
of the family, of the state, and of civilized nations, he 
becomes civilized, and completes the circle of his com- 
forts with the products of all climates, and the labors 
of all men. Individual life is a bud far up, and far 
out, on the common stock. It is sustained by the 
knowledge, the strength, of those who have gone before 
it, and nourished by the activity of those about it. 



56 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

This is equally true of it in its physical and intellectual 
dependences. 

The influence of man over man is not only admissible, 
it is inevitable ; not only inevitable, but the condition 
and law of his progress. Among the various forms of 
influence which men exert one upon another, none is 
more legitimate, more respects the integrity and free- 
dom of individual action, than persuasion. The limit, 
the law of persuasion, defining its end and means, is 
that of right. Not that action, as virtuous, is the only 
end to be proposed by the orator ; but his aims and 
methods are ever to be enclosed within those of virtue, 
lying in the same direction with them, always receiving 
their sanction, often enforced by their obligations. 

It is only by accepting the law of virtue as the line 
and limit of influence, that the orator respects his own 
nature. Right is, or should be, the rule of his intel- 
lectual and social life. Not till he can invalidate a 
claim enforced in his own conscience, and annul the 
grand distinction and justification of conduct, may he 
set it aside in the most delicate and widely influential 
of his acts. 

The claims of the intellectual and moral nature of 
the persons persuaded against virtue are also disre- 
garded. To reach an illegitimate end, the orator must 
avail himself of ignorance, resort to misrepresentation, 



THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 6T 

excite or cherish excessive or unworthy emotion. To 
withhold truth and arouse evil passions is a wrong done 
to the parties affected by such action ; much more is it 
a wrong when these means are used to induce action, 
and make the persons persuaded partners in evil. Ora- 
tory, relying on the spontaneous, free movement of the 
mind, referring all its motives to its approval and adop- 
tion, cannot neglect the great laws of thought, truth, 
and right. 

If, however, we take the low ground that success 
gives law to every department of effort, and that ora- 
tory, as an arty only asks what can be done by the ora- 
tor with ultimate advantage to himself, we still reach 
the same conclusion. Eight is the law of broad and 
permanent success in influence. 

The orator must lose hold upon truth, when he ceases 
to present it, to make it the staple of his own thinking 
and acting. If he deserts the right at one time, he 
cannot return to it with deep conviction at another. It 
becomes to him like his other methods — a device and a 
trick, requiring only skill to be well played off. What- 
ever may be said of rhetoric, the man himself, the ora- 
tor, cannot prosper intellectually and emotionally on 
such a method. The depth, sincerity, and vigor of his 
nature are lost. All the distinctions which judgment 
and conscience make are in practice thrown away, and 
3* 



58 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

the mind , employed as an instrument of cunning expe- 
dients, first grows weary of, and then despises, all genu- 
ine, thorough work. There can be no moral affection, 
no enthusiasm for truth ; for the heart is either never 
called forth, or shortly betrayed. The power of will is 
lost, as it systematically yields to circumstances, nothing 
being proposed save temporary success. 

The whole man, therefore, being weakened and wasted 
by such a method, what shall become of the orator? 
Scepticism, suspicion, and insincerity, however crafty 
they may be, cannot compass any weighty moral ends. 
The powers of a world of conviction, faith, and hon- 
esty have become a mockery to them, and therefore 
forever elude them. Virtue is the law of intellectual, 
emotional, and voluntary life in the orator, and, there- 
fore, the law of oratory. To think the contrary is to 
suppose that falsehood is as productive as truth, and 
that a mind which betrays itself in all its best impulses 
shall yet lose none of its strength. 

If we look at the persons addressed, we shall also 
see that virtue assigns the law of successful persuasion. 
The orator who avails himself of the ignorance and 
passions of men incurs the risk, that, in wiser and 
calmer moments, the fact may be discerned, and prove 
henceforth the occasion of distrust and separation. The 
grounds of influence in oratory are confidence and sym- 



THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 69 

pathy. Without these, the mind holds itself aloof, and 
the emotions sought for are not aroused. Nothing more 
excites men of ordinary intelligence to resistance, to 
close all the avenues of the heart, than the discovery 
that they have been deceived and designedly misled. 
The reserve with which men listen to a plea at the bar 
or the harangue of a politician, the suspicion and cau- 
tion with which they follow its arguments, illustrate the 
loss of confidence with which those persons are received 
whose aims are divided between interest and truth. 
The orator, to secure confidence, — the great condition of 
influence, — must either, therefore, be virtuous, or per- 
fectly simulate virtue, or rely on an ignorance and 
rudeness too great even to discover or heed the funda- 
mental character of the measures and means employed. 
It is evident that but one of these ways can be certainly 
and constantly successful. The greater the intelligence 
and virtue of those addressed, the broader and more im- 
portant the field of oratory, the more does right become 
the inviolable law of influence. Whatever may be 
thought of ignorant and vicious men, wise and virtuous 
men will not long yield themselves to the mischievous 
management of a monger of lies. 

The notion of oratory which regards it as open to all 
expedients and forms of trickery, is radically false. 
True words, words powerful to convince and persuade, 



60 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

are not mere words, are not hollow, but full, swelling 
with the life and character of the man who utters them. 
Only so far as speech embodies emotion and becomes 
genuine in the mouth of him whose it is, can it arouse 
and inspire men. Fire cannot be kindled without fire. 
The mind of the orator is the point of greatest heat : 
here all becomes molten, concurrent, ready to issue into 
the world of action. It is his character which gives 
character to the words of a great orator. They are 
quick with his life. They are thrown forth by his 
assertion, they penetrate hj his power. One cannot 
steal the mail, neither can he steal the eloquence, of a 
nobler man. Words measure, and are measured by, 
the mind's dimensions, and, repeated without the power 
which first uttered them, are well nigh lost. It is im- 
possible to swell out the contour of a great oration with- 
out a corresponding life, since the one can only be by, 
and because of, the other. Greatness is not born of- 
nothing, and least of all in the department of moral 
influence. We must not be suffered to forfyet the fa- 

o 

mous words of the great orator, — 

" True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. 
It cannot be brouoht from far. Labor and learninof 
may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and 
phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they can- 
not compass it. It must exist in the man, in the sub- 



THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 01 

ject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense 
expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to 
it ; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, 
like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the 
bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, ori- 
ginal, native force. The graces taught in the schools, 
the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, 
shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the 
fate of their wives, their children, and their country, 
hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have 
lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate 
oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels 
rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher 
qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devo- 
tion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the 
deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, 
the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming 
from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the 
w^hole man onward, right onward to his object, — this, 
this is eloquence ; or rather it is something greater and 
higher than all eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, 
godlike action." 

Eloquence must then rely on moral force, since this 
is the force of character, and there is no strong rational 
life that is not locked together by a moral purpose. 
The chief ends of oratory are directly moral; the 



62 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

included ends of prosperity and social well-being are so 
indirectly. In advocating these, there is ever an ulterior 
reference to the moral conditions of society — a sub- 
servience of immediate to remote good, of individual to 
general good, which subjects the labor and views of the 
orator to virtue. 

Success in just ends, through and within moral inter- 
ests, is the law of influence in oratory. If we cannot 
enumerate robbery among the methods of production or 
of exchange, much more can we not admit deception 
among the means of influence. The former is not more 
totally destructive of the conditions of commercial suc- 
cess than the latter of the ends of speech. 



AEGUMENTS. * 63 



CHAPTER II. 

AKGUMENTS. 

Facts, truths, are the only safe basis and guide of 
action. Our action, to be successful, must unite itself 
to things as they are, and lie in the line of the forces 
which govern the world. Without this, all effort is 
futile, all issues are false. The first necessity of rational 
action, therefore, is truth ; a presentation of the facts on 
which effort^ is to be grafted, and of the principles by 
which it is to be governed. As an accurate and correct 
statement of facts and principles is not readily arrived 
-at, as many motives exist which may induce others to 
mislead us, presentation must assume, more or less, the 
form of proof, according to the difficulty and doubt 
involved. If we have confidence in the knowledge and 
good intention of the person bringing forward the facts, 
we require no proof beyond the testimony of a simple 
statement. More frequently, however, suspicious of 
the many unconscious errors of opinion ; of the warp- 
ing effect of feeling, habit, and interest; of the zeal 
of the advocate, the partisan attachments of the orator, 



64 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETOEIC. 

or the limited relations of the preacher, — we require an 
independent basis of rational belief to -be furnished to 
our own minds. 

Presentation thus becomes argument, proof, support- 
ing a proposition, establishing a fact, or sweeping away 
an error. The sources and kinds of proof, and their 
relations to conviction, become, therefore, important sub- 
sidiary inquiries to the strictly rhetorical work — the 
best choice, arrangement, and statement of arguments 
for their effect on the mind. 

The'* sources of proof are two — intuition and experi- 
ence. The word " intuition " is taken from the action of 
one of our senses, but is capable of an easy extension 
to all those faculties of internal or external perception 
which directly or independently report anything to 
the mind. 

First among the intuitive powers of the mind are the 
senses. These present distinct and peculiar phenomena, 
and are our most adequate authority for them. We can 
have no better proof for a fact than that we ourselves 
have seen or heard it. This testimony of the senses is 
independent and authoritative, and can only be modified 
by the conclusions of an experience which has pro- 
ceeded on the ground of its general validity. When 
and how far the eye and the ear are to be trusted, we 
can only decide by testimony which they themselves give 



ARGUMENTS. 65 

US. Within these limits, their proof is as perfect as 
any proof can be. 

A second form of intuitive knowledge is that direct 
apprehension which the mind has of its own action. 
It is more usually termed the testimony of consciousness. 
It does not arise from any one faculty, but from the 
very nature of mind. Thought that it may be thought, 
must be known to itself; feeling that it may be feeling, 
must be aware of itself; mind that it may be mind, 
must be conscious of its own phenomena. Complete 
sleep or unconsciousness would involve the perfect sus- 
pension of intellectual life. Consciousness testifies di- 
rectly to mental phenomena — to their existence and 
character, not to their correctness or the truth of 
their results. 

A third source of intuitive knowledge is memory— ~ 
the testimony which the mind gives to facts which have 
occurred in its past experience. This, of all the forms 
of direct proof, is the most uncertain, is subject to the 
most limitations and corrections from experience. These 
restrictions, however carefully established, do not give 
to memory its authority : this is independent and 
original; experience only defining the bounds within 
which it can be relied on. Though a man should see 
but six feet, it is, nevertheless, sight which carries 
knowledge thus far. Memory is verified by memory, 

E 



66 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

and the experience wliich corrects it depends upon it. 
A certain picture which memory has given I may after- 
ward be able to confront with the facts themselves 
derived from an independent source, as testimony or 
vision ; yet even in this most favorable case of testing 
her power, I still trust the distinctness and precision 
of her statement for one member of the comparison. 
The validity of memory is more easily judged than that 
of most of our intuitive powers ; and the fact that in so 
many cases it seems so signally to fail, may appear to 
cast, some suspicion on our other intuitive faculties. As 
nothing can be more destructive to faith in human 
knowledoje than a want of trust in the oric^inal and 
unverified action of the mind, it is important to see 
that the uncertain action of memory does not imply 
similar uncertainty in the testimony of kindred faculties. 

The chief fault of memory is negative — that it does 
not retain the matter intrusted to it ; but this does not 
invalidate its own positive testimony, much less the 
positive testimony of other powers. 

Again, the results of memory are readily confounded 
with those of other faculties — of imagination, of reason- 
ing. The partial premises which memory has actually 
given we complete from our fancy, or by the conclu- 
sions of the judgment. The whole is then stored in the 
mind, and afterward reported by memory, and on the 



ARGUMENTS. . 67 

authority of memory ; a portion — that furnished by 
imagination* or inference — is found false. Here the 
falsification of memory is apparent, not real. There has 
not been a just separation of the mind's action ; and 
if this separation should have taken place by memory, 
her failure to make it is a defective assertion ratlier than 
a false assertion. Much which seems to be erroneous 
is simply defective. That we are compelled to define 
closely and carefully the safe limits of memory, we are 
ready to admit, and are quite willing to carry the asser- 
tion over with its whole force to the other intuitive 
faculties ; but that within these limits they are not each 
and all perfectly reliable, cannot be admitted. That 
these limitations should be numerous in the case of 
memory is not surprising, since we have here so many 
concurrent sources of certainty. 

A fourth and most important intuitive faculty is that 
of the reason. By the term we designate the power 
which gives us the regulative ideas of knowledge. 
Things are known only as they are known in certain 
relations — in their arrangement in space, in their order 
in time, in the connection of cause and effect. The 
regulative ideas of space, time, cause, by which we 
arrange impressions into knowledge, are given us di- 
rectly by the mind, are perceived at once by the reason 
in the appropriate phenomena. These regulative ideas 



08 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

are those of existence, resemblance, space, number, time, 
cause, consciousness, beauty, right, freedom,? the infinite. 
Under some of these, as that of space, are included 
many subordinate intuitions — the axioms of geometry. 
These the mind apprehends without proof. 

The chief fallacies of this form of proof are mistak- 
ing the results of reflection or association for those of 
intuition, or overlooking the conditions of the safe action 
of our intuitive faculties. The mind interested in its 
own movement, in the parade of argument, gives more 
attention to rationative than to intuitive proof. As, 
however, the latter is the foundation of the former, it 
must evidently furnish us just premises, before the sim- 
ply logical, deductive process can be safely instituted. 
The more rigid this movement of mind, the more cer- 
tainly does it elaborate error, unless it first freely ac- 
cepts as premises all the data furnished by intuition. 

The second source of proof is experience. Experi- 
ence acts only on the facts furnished by the intuitions. 
The phenomena presented are dwelt upon by the mind, 
till their resemblances and connections are seen and 
stated in general terms. Each object is to the eye 
individual; and named, the name is a proper noun. 
When, however, other objects are seen closely to resem- 
ble it, and this fact is marked by the application to 
them of the same name, the word becomes a common 



I 



ARGUMENTS. 69 

noun, and contains a first truth of experience. The 
mind thus proceeds through the innumerable objects of 
the external and the internal world, and groups them 
in classes according to permanent resemblances, con- 
stantly transforming its proper into common nouns, 
and greatly multiplying the latter. Each name of a 
class contains a fact of experience, and language be- 
comes the storehouse of knowledge. Scientific knowl- 
edge difiers from popular speech only in the more fun- 
damental and connected character of the resemblances 
on which it proceeds. A term of scientific classification 
is part of a system designating hot merely one kind of 
agreement, but constituting the complement of other 
terms by which the interconnections of an entire depart- 
ment are noted. A first product of experience is the 
application to agreeing things of common nouns ; a more 
mature product, their scientific classification. 

Things agree, not only in appearances, but also in 
their action one upon another. To mark this agree- 
ment, and thus learn the laws of cause and effect by 
which things are united in events, and move on in an 
ever-changing universe, becomes a second most impor- 
tant and more difficult labor of experience. This effort, 
in its incipient and rude form, at once shows itself in 
language, and verbs expressing some given action mark 
by their application the character of the event. 



70 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

Here, again, the chief difFerence between the popular 
and the scientific terms in which these truths of experi- 
ence are treasured, lies in the more accurate, well- 
defined agreements on which the latter rest. An apple 
falls to the earth, and gravitates to the earth. The one 
word marks the fact, the other the fact in its precise 
manner or law. Man, as he becomes increasingly 
thoughtful, notes more and more the character of the 
forces at work about him, and thus reaches the exact 
truths of experience. 

Experience proceeds on the permanent character of 
nature — that things remain in properties what they are, 
and, as involved therein, that forces everywhere adhere 
to their fixed law of action. From agreement, there- 
fore, in appearances and properties, it infers sameness 
of nature, and attributes to the same species an identity 
of inherent powers. On the other hand, from agree- 
ment of causes, of governing circumstances, it antici- 
pates a similarity of effects. Experience ever argues 
from resemblance — from similar effects to identity of 
causes, from identity of causes to similarity of effects. 

But resemblance has many degrees. It passes from 
perfect identity through sameness, resemblance, and 
analogy into the most transient and accidental agree- 
ments. From this fact, great uncertainty attaches to 
many of the conclusions of experience, and the substan- 



ARGUMENTS. ' 71 

tial and safe features of likeness in every department 
must be learned by discriminating and protracted ex- 
perience within that department. Not till observation 
itself has taught us can we tell how much stress to lay 
on the agreement of plants in the number and arrange- 
ment of leaves ; in the number and arrangement of the 
parts of the flower ; in the form of the seed vessel. 
The more complex the efifects or the causes considered, 
the less able shall we be to affirm a complete agreement, 
or such an agreement as to secure the safety of our 
argument. Medicine, administered to a patient, is only 
one among many and most active and efficacious causes ; 
we shall trace its eJ0Pects, therefore, with great uncer- 
tainty in the results, and cannot conclude, at once, that 
these will be the same in each case. 

There is, hence, often the semblance of proof without 
any real strength in its connections. A superficial re- 
semblance is argued from as if it were an inherent 
agreement : the premises include a likeness at one 
point, while the conclusion requires it at quite another : 
an effect which arises from a complex state is attributed 
to one of the causes at work, though, for aught that 
appears, this may be the least efficient of them all, or 
even adverse. 

A comparison, therefore, becomes a most open and 
effective way for the admission of a fallacy. It appeals 



72 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

to experience, carries its conclusions over with ease and 
directness, does not challenge criticism, and scarcely 
seems to suffer error. The substitution of apparent 
for real resemblance has sorely vexed philosophy, and 
rendered of no avail the logic of the most acute minds. 
This is well illustrated in the freedom of the will. • If 
the will is free, it is thereby wholly unique, wholly 
unHke anything in nature, and, therefore, can be ap- 
proached or expounded by no resemblance whatsoever. 
Its chief characteristic is, by the supposition of free- 
dom, radically diverse from everything else. To affirm 
that a motive has influence, and afterward proceed to 
analyze this word " influence " by the analogies of the 
physical world, is of necessity to destroy the idea we 
are treating. By comparing influence in the one field 
of liberty to influence in the other of necessity, we hide 
in the very word the notion of necessity, and afterward, 
of course, succeed by analysis in reaching it. We con- 
ceal the goblet in Benjamin's sack, and then pluck it out 
as triumphant proof against him. 

Of the second form of fallacy, in which resemblance 
at one point is substituted for resemblance at another, 
the argument turning on a different consideration from 
that brought forward in the premises, an ever-returEing 
illustration is found in the justification of an action on 
the ground of its fitness at some previous time. Pres- 



ARGUMENTS. 73 

ent conditions and relations determine the rightness of 
action. To justify an institution, therefore, by com- 
paring it with one previously accepted, is fallacious, 
unless we can also show an identity of circumstances. 
Once right, always right, is not an axiom of morals. It 
precludes the idea of progress, which is their basis. 

Medicine is fruitful in examples of the third fallacy, 
confidently expecting from one cause effects due to many 
causes. There is here the opportunity of a double error. 
The premises may be erroneous, effects being referred 
to a given remedy which do not belong to it ; the argu- 
ment may be misapplied, there not being in the two 
cases an agreement of efBcient circumstances. The 
pleasing and effective nature of comparison, turning the 
attention from the logical limits of the argument in- 
volved to the resemblance of familiar objects, should 
make us the more careful in scrutinizing its character. 

Though the form of knowledge is given in the regula- 
tive ideas of the mind, the contents of this form, the 
great bulk of knowledge, is furnished by experience. 
What is? In what manner is it? are questions which 
the race, from the beginning, have been busy in answer- 
ing. This knowledge, accumulated by the joint efforts 
of men, comes to the individual testified to by those who 
have gone before him, and the larger share of liis 
knowledge is referable, not to personal experience, but 
4 



74 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

to testimony. Testimony is the great source of facts 
and prtQciples to the individual, and proof is often 
resolved into the credibility of testimony. This itself 
is determined by experience, and is chiefly dependent on 
the knowledge and integrity of the witness, weighed 
with the opportunities he may have had for the one, 
and with the motives which tend to sway him fiom 
the other. 

An easy fallacy of testimony is confounding facts 
with conclusions dravni from them. For competent 
testimony to the first, actual observation is all that is 
requisite. Men, though by no means equal in their 
power to observe or report events, are so relatively. 
The value of an opinion, on the other hand, depends 
almost exclusively on him who gives it. False conclu- 
sions, therefore, disguised under the facts, and stated 
as a portion of them, may readily embarrass testimony 
and mislead the judgment. A man is said to be in- 
solent, to be proud, to be angry, to be drunk. It is a 
question, not purely of facts, but of inference from 
words and actions. 

Certain circumstances, forming a chain of proof, are 
to be given. The mind may have already united them 
by a theory of its own, and, if so, inevitably gives col- 
oring and relation to them according to its own explana- 
tion of them. In a science like mental philosophy, it 



ARGUMENTS. 75 

is much more than half the labor to secure impartial 
testimony to naked phenomena of mind. This error is 
often mingled with one already referred to. A patient 
testifies to the effect of medicine as if his statement 
were the explicit delivery of facts, and not the most 
uncertain of all opinions. On an agricultural question, 
as the eifect on a crop of this or that mode of treat- 
ment, — on a social question, as the results of this or that 
institution, — it is most difficult to secure the facts, so 
enlarged, retrenched, and warped are they by the uncon- 
scious influence of opinion. 

Hence is it that the mind relies so much on the 
undesigned coincidence of testimony. The perverting 
elements of interest and feeling are eliminated, and the 
essential truth of the statements becomes requisite to 
explain their agreement. 

Here appears a new form of experience. When we 
know the causes, we readily reason from them to their 
effects ; but when we are ignorant of them, or they are 
too various and irregular to be separately estimated, we 
yet draw conclusions often possessed of great certainty. 
A calculation of chances, though sometimes leading to 
results of little worth for a single transaction, may yet 
aiford safe guidance as cases multiply. 

Accidents assume a certain equality, preserve a certain 
ratio, when taken in large numbers. Accidents are not 



76 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

uncaused events, but events which have no stated cause. 
Under given circumstances, on a large field, they assume 
certain limits. From these limits they do not greatly 
vary. If they were to vary, either^to increase or di- 
minish, it would imply the pressure of some steady 
force, securing this result. The eiFect would be no 
longer accidental. 

Dice thrown a large number of times will show equal- 
ity in the presentation of the several faces. If, how- 
ever, there was a steady tendency discoverable to present 
one number, this would be adequate proof that the dice 
were not fairly made, — that there was in them some 
inequality of weight. 

In the accidents by which property is destroyed, when 
we have measured the limits reached by any one form 
of loss, as by fire, on a field large enough to include 
the whole range of chances, we are sure that these will 
not be much overpassed without some assignable, gen- 
eral, and steady cause. In other words, there is a 
gauge of partial and fluctuating causes, which experi- 
ence teaches us may be taken, and that accidents, be- 
cause they are accidents, can show no steady tendency 
to preponderate on the one side or the other. 

What is termed circumstantial evidence depends 
chiefly on a calculation of chances. A dozen things, 
which might with little difficulty be accounted for sepa- 



ARGUMENTS. . 77 

ratelj, together form a network of proof from which 
there is no escape. The distinct threads now draw 
together, and, as in a cord, must be broken at once. 
On what supposition shall they all be accounted for? 
is the pregnant question. The chances that one solu- 
tion should solve them all, and not be the true solution, 
are as the chances that a key shall open a complex lock, 
and not be the key. 

In reasoning from a calculation of chances, two points 
are of importance : that the number of cases taken be 
so great as to include the extreme range of accident, — 
an entire cycle of chances ; — and that in passing from 
one field to another there remains a perfect agreement 
in the known causes at work. Where these cannot be 
readily estimated, the measurement of chances must be 
again taken, so as to include them. The loss by fire 
in cities must obviously be greater than in the country, 
and in one city than in another, according to the mate- 
rial employed in building. But the amount of these 
differences can be ascertained only by independent cal- 
culations. 

Proof, or evidence, may be of two kinds — intui- 
tive or rationative. The intuitive faculties are the 
most immediate and satisfactory sources of proof. 
The man who cannot be convinced by seeing, cannot 
be convinced at all ; nay, has lost the very use of 



78 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

those faculties throiigli which conviction comes. It 
is no assumption to start with all that any faculty 
testifies to. It is a most perplexing and impossible 
form of proof to struggle to establish through argu- 
ment what rests on the immediate insight of the 
mind. Axioms cannot be proved save as axioms. 
Doubt them as axioms, and they are forever lost. That 
is a most perverse rhetoric which strives to get lower 
than the foundations. The testimony of the mind 
should be taken, where it can be taken, without hesi- 
tancy or distrust. Let the mind lose trust in itself, and 
all adroitness of argument afterward becomes, like the 
skill of an equilibrist, of no practical value. There is 
no conviction so deep and perfect as that which arises 
when man's moral nature is directly appealed to, and the 
testimony of the reason invoked. Every other witness 
is far off, compared with conscience. 

Arguments are of two kinds — inductive and deductive : 
the differences between them are radical. Inductive 
reasoning proceeds from specific examples to a general 
principle, inclusive of all kindred cases. Deductive 
reasoning evolves from a general truth or principle what 
is contained in it. In the one case, the conclusion 
reaches beyond the premises ; in the other, it is included 
within them. In induction the argument rests on re- 
semblance, and springs from experience ; it passes from 



ARGUMENTS. 79 

like to like, from wkat has been to what shall be, ever 
assuming the permanent, self-consistent character of 
causes. In deduction the argument is a logical evolu- 
tion of principles oftentimes wholly independent of 
experience. Induction is never, and can never be, 
demonstrative. There is more affirmed in the conclu- 
sion than is given in the premises. With no insight 
into the nature of causes, we learn their effects from 
experience, and under its guidance anticipate similar 
results in future, without being able to establish an 
absolute identity, but only a more or less perfect resem- 
blance of causes. The conviction, that the same cause 
will ever produce the same effect, is axiomatic, and does 
not, when involved, destroy the demonstrative character 
of an argument. Induction and experience fail of abso- 
lute proof by not being able to establish identity of 
causes, and by being constantly compelled to assume 
this on the ground of resemblances more or less perfect. 
Deductive evidence, on the other hand, meets the 
conditions of a complete syllogism, is always demon- 
strative in form, and would be so in fact, did it hot 
often start with principles resting only on induction. 
The reasoning of mathematics is demonstrative, because 
it unfolds what is contained in ideas distinctly and neces- 
sarily present to the mind. If, taught by experience, 
we secure a distinct notion, an adequate definition, of a 



80 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETOHIC. 

force in nature, we may demonstratively unfold its 
effects when assumed as present under given conditions. 
This is done in mechanics, in astronomy, and proof 
resting originally on induction becomes demonstrative 
through the simple and defined character of the causes 
concerned. Deduction, strictly, is always demonstrative. 
The argument, if correct, is adequate from the given 
premises to absolutely prove the conclusion. If any 
doubt enters, it does not attach to the deductive process, 
but to some of the steps preparatory to it. The syllo- 
gism is in its perfect form demonstrative, no matter 
what its contents. All deductive argument assumes the 
perfect form. 

Virtue and intelligence secure success. 
A. has virtue and intelligence. 
Therefore A. will succeed. 

This is a deductive argument. Success is evolved 
from A.'s virtue and intelligence. 'No doubt can enter 
between the premises and the conclusions. The deduc- 
tive steps are just as demonstrative as those of mathe- 
matics. If any distrust still lingers about the conclu- 
sion, it must arise either from the minor premise — a 
disbelief in the fact of A.'s virtue and intelligence — 
or from the major premise — a doubt of the correctness 



I 



ARGUMENTS. 81 

of the induction, by which, from given cases, the prin- 
ciple is established. 

It is a mistake to suppose that what is sometimes 
termed moral evidence is not, in many of its forms, 
demonstrative. The circumstances, however, with 
which it deals, are not often so well known or estab- 
lished as to allow it to avail itself of this fact. In this 
respect it is like mixed mathematics. A hypothetical 
system of morals can readily be constructed, demon- 
strative in all its parts. The preacher, at least, has 
quite as often to do with deductive as with inductive 
argument — to unfold and apply what is conceded as to 
establish principles. The lawyer and statesman, on the 
other hand, dealing with facts, must constantly guide 
their steps by experience, and rest their conclusions on 
the history of the past. The process is more often the 
establishment of a principle, or the including of a given 
case under a principle, than the deductive unfolding of 
the principle itself. 

A chief difficulty in the reasonings which pertain to 
ordinary life, is a want of precision in the terms em- 
ployed. Words shift their force in the same connection, 
contam more in the conclusion than in the premises, 
more for one mind than for another, and thus the argu- 
ment staggers or sinks altogether, from the fleeting 
character of the floating symbols on which it traverses 
4* r 



82 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

the tide of talk. In the proof above given, as accura.te 
as most, v^hat precisely is meant by success, and what 
degree of virtue and intelligence is requisite to secure 
it? So various are the forces which oppose progress, so 
various "the power which virtue brings against them, 
that the most which can be affirmed with absolute cer- 
tainty is, that all degrees of vu'tue and intelligence favor 
success, and that any high degree will usually secure it. 
Life fails to be reduced to a demonstration, not from 
the uncertainty of the connections, the dependences 
between things, but from our uncertain hold of the 
things themselves. Definition is the basis of demon- 
stration, and our ordinary notions are at masquerade, 
because we so poorly define them. They elude us ; 
they are never themselves ; never twice alike ; and 
have no false connections, because they have no true 
ones. Science is little more than accuracy, than defi- 
nition ; and where this can be reached, argument quickly 
approaches absolute proof. In philosophical productions, 
where the precision and justness of the thought are 
everything, all must proceed from the most clear and 
v\^ell-defined ideas, and the laws of thought become the 
laws of composition. In oratory, however, the argu- 
ment is used, not presented, and this fact gives us some 
further principles. Truth is not furnished for its own 



ARGUMENTS. 83 

sake, but proof is urged as the motive and basis of just 
action. 

A first principle, therefore, is, that proof should be 
strictly pertinent, called for by the end in view. To 
present arguments, hov^ever just in themselves, vrhich 
are not needed to bring the will into action, is at very 
best a loss of time, and usually, therefore, a loss of 
interest and opportunity. 

To determine what is requisite in argument, we need 
to know what we can trust to the intuitions of our audi- 
ence. A direct appeal to their own sense of truth and 
right is, when first principles are involved, by far the 
most efficacious method, both because this is the appro- 
priate proof of such principles, and because it indicates 
our reliance on their integrity and honesty, and makes 
them cheerful parties to the conclusion. On the other 
hand, subtle arguments on such points are always unsat- 
isfactory ; the auditor is thrown into a cold, critical 
state ; and a spirit of scepticism is evoked, which will 
not be readily laid. 

We should also know what is already admitted by 
those addressed, that on these points, if the argument 
is treated at all, it may be in the most succinct state- 
ment. Let it not seem, for an 'instant, that a question 
encumbered with serious difficulties is to be handled at 
a safe distance in its obvious features, with an oversight 



84 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

of its more perplexed parts. The impression of bold- 
ness, directness, and thoroughness of argument are 
worth everything. 

It is also a preliminary point of some moment to 
determine with whom the burden of proof lies. If it 
rests with one's opponent, this fact affords a just and 
often very grave advantage. In this case, as when one 
defends a citadel, not to be vanquished is to vanquish. 
After each unsuccessful assault, the holder is left in 
more secure possession. It is a just advantage, since 
it arises from the nature of the case. 'No one is called 
on to prove innocency. The accusation of guilt must 
be specific and well established, and it is sufficient to 
meet it when presented. One quietly conscious of in- 
tegrity will not be put on his defence, mil not entertain 
the necessity of proof, till the danger becomes distinct 
and imminent. Virtue rests on a silent appeal to char- 
acter ; guilt must be established by proof. 

All that is, either as springing from nature, or from 
the opinions of men, has in its favor the presumption 
of right. Action and opinion, if changed rationally, 
must be changed for a reason. Whatever a custom 
may be, therefore, before laying it aside, or adopting 
a new method, we justly demand an adequate motive — 
proof of its impropriety, proof of the superiority oF 
that offered in its place. Till this is given, we rightly 



ARGUMENTS. 85 

remain where we are. However much one may be 
haunted with a vague notion of the unreliable character 
of the opinions which education or accident have made 
his, he cannot wisely reject them, till, one by one, they 
have been satisfactorily disproved. It is more rational to 
content one's self with an old lie, an old doubt, than it is 
to accept a new one ; since, by the supposition, we have 
not improved oUr position by changing it, and have therein 
acted without a motive. A good illustration of the 
advantage afforded by the burden of proof resting on 
an adversary is seen in the establishment of any reli- 
gious form. The presumption is, that the form of any 
action, if not explicitly defined and enjoined, is unim- 
portant. Hence the advocates of any one form must 
establish it, not by establishing the action itself, but by 
the explicit enforcement of it under the given method, 
to the exclusion of every other. 

The burden of proof, like occupancy, affords an 
advantage which ought not to be resigned unless in 
view of easy and certain success. Once waived, and 
the argument entered on, it cannot be readily recovered. 
We may decline to enter the field of debate on the 
ground that it cannot be claimed of us; but being 
pu6h(^,d, we cannot so readily retreat to the assump- 
tion of right 

Having settled what must be proved to secure rational 



86 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

conviction, it remains to choose and arrancre our arg-u- 
ments. A chief principle here is, their careful adapta- 
tion, in matter and manner, to the powers of the persons 
addressed. Arguments are more often obscure through 
the language used, than through any inherent abstruse- 
ness of thought. The educated mind is more and more 
removed from the popular mind in the form of its ideas 
and their manner of expression. Terms used in a 
technical and limited signification become not only 
familiar to it, but the staple of its vocabulary, and its 
ideas assume a mode of expression so diverse from that 
of ordinary speech as effectually to perplex the untrained 
mind. 

Whatever the subject matter, language, illustration, 
must have sole reference to the hearers. It cannot be 
too familiar and easy. It must be made for them the 
most perfect and perspicuous medium of thought. It is 
the skill, the instinct, of the orator, that teaches him 
where and how to find his audience. 

There is also a choice in arguments. Not those most 
conclusive, but those most convincing, are to be taken. 
The intricacy of a deductive argument which taxes to 
the utmost the intellect is highly unfavorable to oratory, 
since it leaves the mind weary, prepared for rest, not 
aroused by quick flashes of truth to earnest action. 
Comparisons and examples, though less accurate, are 



ARGUMENTS. 87 

much more efficacious methods of proof. The audience 
is brought to the conclusion in the freshness of its 
power, quickened, not taxed, by thought. 

Kapidity thus becomes an important element of suc- 
cess. To dwell long on arguments, or to convince by 
their laborious accumulation, makes the way tedious, and 
the hearers are either exhausted by it or cease to follow 
it. If the mind is to be set aglow, there must be quick- 
ness of movement ; and once brought to the right point, 
it cannot long be retained there. Strike while the iron 
is hot, is a precept of broad application. The effort 
to gather up the details of an argument may, by restor- 
ing the attention to particulars, to minutiae of proof, so 
cool the mind that it shall become less and less pliant to 
our purpose. The exact measure of rapidity which the 
orator should employ must depend on the power of 
the audience. We cannot move successfully faster, 
nor much slower, than the minds of those who listen. 
The attention is more fixed, and a stronger effect pro- 
duced, by a thorough treatment of a few arguments than 
by their multiplication. The uncultivated are especially 
impatient of protracted proof. Their opinions are 
formed hastily by a few points well put. 

Proof requires impression almost as much as matter 
less logical. To evolve an argument, and urge it from 
many sides till it comes to possess the mind, is most 



88 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

essential. The mere statement of proof is cold and 
barren. Conduct is not so wedded to conviction as this 
would imply. 

The arrangement of arguments must be such as to 
secure a growth of impression. It cannot, therefore, 
proceed from greater to less. Nor need the order be 
exclusively that of a climax, since a gTOwth of convictions 
may often be secured without this. As in a sentence, 
the earlier and later positions, those considerations which 
first invite and last occupy the mind, are most important. 
Attention should be commanded by the weight of the 
proof brought forward ; and the mind should be con- 
firmed in its convictions by an eiFective, final point. 
Arguments much below the level of those adduced with 
them, hardly add to the strength of a cause. The 
necessity of employing them implies weakness, and 
they are liable to weary the mind, and to render it 
suspicious. 

Arguments, of course, come early in the oration. 
They occupy the mind while it is yet quiet, and clear 
the way for rational feeling. No sooner is the subject 
before the mind, than it wishes to know the ground of 
action : to state and establish this becomes the imme- 
diate duty of the speaker. The argumentative and 
emotional parts of discourse are not so much distinct 
sections, readily separable and following one the other, 



ARGUMENTS. . 89 

as interwoven members everywhere sustaining each 
other. The feelino^ must beoin to arise with the arou- 
ment, and the argument can only close at the full tide 
of feeling. The earlier movement is more exclusively 
thoughtful, the later more strikingly impulsive ; but the 
emotion has sprung up everywhere in the track of truth, 
and to the very end is nourished by the argument to 
which in quick snatches of conviction it is ever return- 
ing. Like opposite poles in the electric current, they 
rest on each other, and coexist everywhere. 

Different forms of oratory stand in different relations 
to the argument. Pulpit oratory has more occasion to 
enforce and apply than to establish truth ; the bar is 
chiefly occupied with the more strict processes of proof. 
The first, with more undoubted claims, and less delayed 
by the exigencies of argument, can bring forward more 
confidently and quickly the stirring appeal, and press 
onward to the immediate end of action. 

Misled by this general conviction of the goodness of 
the cause, and freed from attack, the sacred orator may 
become less cautious of the soundness of the considera- 
tions advanced, and commit the unpardonable error of 
weak and puerile argument employed in the defence of 
unmistakable truths. The cause is thus damaged by 
those who sustain it. A more common mistake, resting 
on the conviction of undeniable right, is the hortatory 



90^ PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

form which discourse often assumes fi:om the beoinmn*!: 
to the end. Now, exhortation requires a basis, if not 
in argument, jet in presentation. Not till truth has 
been more vi^ddly brous^ht before the mind, or more 
broadly unfolded, is it prepared with any new energy to 
espouse or obey it. Exhortation is properly the conclu- 
sion, not the body, of discourse. There are at this 
point two opposed errors, almost equally fatal, which 
men fall into according to their several characteristics — 
a direct appeal without that presentation of truth which 
gives it propriety and power ; a discussion of principles 
without that enforcement which gives them value. It is 
only when the body of thought is animated by fitting 
emotion, that we have a living product ; only when the 
will is reached through the intellect as well as the heart, 
that man achieves progress. 

As the truths which the minister enforces stand in 
various relations, and are chosen not in reference to any 
one mooted question, the sermon demands and receives 
an application. The whole armament is turned upon a 
single point, and from this concentration of aim the 
efibrt receives its law, and becomes an oration 

The lawyer, on the other hand, has constantly occa- 
sion to discuss and establish the ever-doubtful conditions 
of action, and can do nothing rightly till some basis of 
action has been found in fact or in law. The plea. 



ARGUMENTS. 91 

therefore, is preeminently argumentative ; and as proof 
is often difficult, it is made exhaustive, and every con- 
sideration is thrown into the vacillating balance. Plausi- 
bility — a preparation for proof, rather than proof itself 
— here often becomes important. Events separately 
established are to be united into a narrative, natural in 
all its connections. The facts proved, w^hen thus con- 
curring, have their full force, and the way of argument 
is made easy. When the facts are undoubted, plausi- 
bility may be neglected ; but when all the resources of 
proof are requisite, its strength cannot be further taxed 
by inherent improbability. 

A first consideration in treating an opponent is 
candor and fairness, for what they are in themselves, 
in their effect on others, and in the strength they imply. 
Thorough knowledo^e and a calm confidence of success 
beget these qualities, and these in turn become their 
index. The irritable acrimony, the assumed contempt, 
with which an adversary is often treated, are feeble 
makeshifts, and evidence of a mind seeking personal 
ends rather than truth. Conviction is often readily 
secured by the fakness with which a real difficulty is 
stated and removed, when it could not possibly be 
reached by any amount of independent proof. This 
principle is of broad application, but is possessed of 



92 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOIIIC. 

special force in legal oratory, already too much sus- 
pected of petty devices and sharp practice. 

That an opponent's arguments should be met and 
answered at the proper time is a point of some impor- 
tance. To answer objections at the outset, whether 
urged by another or known already to exist, may fre- 
quently consume too much time, embarrass the argu- 
ment, and be less satisfactory than when this is done in 
connection with the just view which the speaker him- 
self is to propose. There are cases, however, which 
will not admit delay. The mind is so occupied by 
difficulties as to be closecf to any argument till these are 
removed. An important rule is, when the hearer is 
preoccupied either by the arguments of an adversary 
or opinions of his own, these must be in a measure met, 
preparatory to an independent presentation of opposing 
principles. When, however, the mind is sufficiently 
candid and open to give due weight to what is urged, 
the most easy and complete refutation of false opinions 
will be made in connection with an establishment of the 
truth. It then becomes natural to mark the lines of 
deviation which error has taken. 

A common fallacy is to attach too much consequence 
to the refutation of a single argument. As arguments 
often stand alone, it may be a point of little moment 



ARGUMENTS. 93 

that one has been overthrown. The eclat, hovfever, 
which attends a successful refutation, and the quick 
judgment which is arrived at, that remaining consider- 
ations are of the same character, sometimes make an 
imimportant advantage equivalent to a complete over- 
throw. The popular mind judges so much by retorts, 
by the apparent relations of parties, as to render shal- 
low adroitness in debate more than a match for awkward 
and ponderous strength. Here is furnished another rea- 
son why any position relatively weak should not be 
taken, lest its overthrow prove the signal of defeat. 
There is often a panic in discussion, as in arms. 

In debate 'a speech does not stand in connection with 
the subject and audience merely, but with the exigencies 
of the instant. It becomes the part of a more inclusive 
whole, and is alone no longer a symmetrical production. 
It assumes the argument and passion already put forth, 
and unites itself to the movement at the point which 
these may have reached. Not to be able to do this 
is to fail. 

Argument, the subject now presented, is the basis of 
permanent success. No one can long succeed, no one 
ought to succeed without supporting the truth, and 
without its support. Here lies the justice, and there- 
fore the strength, of one's cause. All forms of knowl- 



9-1 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

edge are the sources and instruments of argument. 
It is by a broad survey of real relations alone, that 
one can discover and maintain thq truth. Rhetorical 
culture implies all other culture, and must have it. 
Nothing is more superficial than superficial oratory. 
Eloquence roots itself in all knowledge, and only a 
rich soil can yield a rank, native growth. 



EMOTIONS. 95 



CHAPTER m. 

EMOTIONS. 

Inteemediate between tlie intellect and the will, 
in the line of action, lie the emotions. Through these, 
desire is called forth, the will determined, and the 
whole man set in motion. Thought becomes power 
only by the intervention of feeling, and is judged, 
therefore, by the orator solely in reference to the emo- 
tions it is fitted to arouse, and the relation of. these to 
the end in view. Neither the laws of thought nor of 
feeling alone are considered by him, but both in their 
connections with each other and with the will. Thus 
only can all the complex conditions of a volition, the 
fulness and completion of mental activity, be reached. 
Oratory «s the dynamics of mind. It contemplates it 
aroused and active, and studies the laws of the forces 
which then control it. 

A first condition of easy and perfect success in arous- 
ing emotion is the sympathy of those who are to expe- 
rience it with him who calls it forth. Fire is kindled 
by fire, feeling by feeling. A cold statement of appro- 



96 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

priate truths does not necessitate warmth of conviction 
in the hearer any more than the heaping up of combus- 
tible material secures heat. The spark of ignition must 
come from the earnestness of the speaker. He is the 
fountain of feeling, and looking with him at the sub- 
ject, the audience insensibly catch his emotion. Great 
dramatic art may show some exceptions, but the chief 
condition on which the power of the speaker to make 
others feel deeply will depend, is depth in his own 
emotions. 

But this feeling cannot be transferred without that 
sympathy which removes opposition, and leaves the 
hearer open to the subject presented. It is by con- 
current thinking the heart is to be aroused ; and if each 
movement is arrested by the barrier of prejudice, each 
effort met -with a counter effort, there can be no com- 
munity of action. 

The opinion which the audience entertain of the 
speaker thus becomes an important consideration, since 
by it the way of influence is opened or closed* It may 
be said that justice requires that behefs should be 
separated from persons, and judged on their own ab- 
stract merit. However true this may be in given 
instances, the mass of conclusions are not so reached. 
Persons and opinions are identified, and views are 
greatly prejudiced or promoted by the character of those 



EMOTIONS. 97 

who hold them. This is unavoidable, and, for the most 
part, not undesirable. Complex questions must, in the 
bustle of life, be settled, not always by considerations 
truly fundamental and carefully considered, but often 
also by superficial marks and tendencies more quickly 
reached. Among these secondary indications of the 
character of opinions, few are more reliable than the 
purposes and influence of those who sustain them. One 
can often decide by these when not able to form a well- 
balanced opinion on the case itself. It is in vain to 
try to rob men of this quick and generally just method 
of judging measures. To distrust the man, and trust 
his schemes, is too nice an equipoise of mind for 
most purposes, or most men. The agent gives char- 
acter to the agency, and becomes its efficient moral 
force. 

This is perfectly just so far as the person seeking to 
exert influence is concerned. He ought to be held to a 
rigorous account as to the method in which he has 
hitherto employed power^ the opinions he has advocated, 
and the paths in which he has sought to lead men. 
Vi:*'tue ought to accumulate strength, vice to lose it. 
Benevolence ought to win favor, and selfishness to for- 
feit it ; integrity to secure confidence, and trickery to 
destroy it. The momentum and power of personal 
character are a most wholesome law in the world. 
5 Q 



98 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. 

The points at which the character of the speaker is 
chiefly judged are intelligence and virtue. Of these 
the last is obviously the most important. Intelligence 
alone only increases the power to deceive ; suspicion is 
on the alert, and will not suflfer the mind to accept just 
reasoning, lest it be found a gloss of language. A 
distrust of one's virtue may lead to the immediate rejec- 
tion of discourse ; of one's intelligence, to a more care- 
ful and scrutinizing inquiry into it. In the one case, 
the character of the speaker turns us from him ; in the 
other, draws us to him, and disposes us to give his 
opinions honest consideration* The admiration which 
genius excites, however, in part counteracts this ten- 
dency, and gives an undue weight to the intellectual 
element in character. 

The relation of the speaker to a sect or party may 
also be an occasion of prejudice against him. Partisan 
feelino^s are stron2:er and blinder in the illiterate than in 
the more intelligent. The one class rest their opinions 
.on conviction, and neither need nor seek any firmness 
beyond that derived from views deliberately formed and 
discriminatingly held. They are both able and wUling 
to canvass a subject whose bearings they understand. 
The other class, arriving at their views largely by acci- 
dental and external influences, steady themselves in 
them by the superinduced obstinacy of party feeling, 



EMOTIONS. 99 

and do not venture on discussion beyond a few familiar 
cant phrases, conscious that their power is not here. 
Liable, if they once give way to argument, to be blown 
about at random, they make it a first principle of 
honesty and honor to adhere faithfully to any party or 
sect with which caprice or accident has identified them. 
As change, with their limited ability to canvass all its 
motives, would be capricious, they arm themselves 
against it by personal and party obstinacy. They yield 
to a first caprice, and ever after abjure it. Partisan feel- 
ings, taking the place of deep convictions, are very strong 
with the ignorant. Though blindly driven by old 
leaders, they do not readily yield to new ones. When 
these prejudices, therefore, lie in the way of the orator, 
they require skilful treatment, lest in the outset they 
extinguish all sympathy. 

Allied to differences of party are differences of doc- 
trine. Doctrine often assumes so settled and obdurate 
a form as to close the mind to all opposing considera- 
tions, and cut off the opportunity of conviction. A 
creed made up is- like a fortress with its defences, and 
cannot be lightly approached. If it be the difficult task 
of the orator to attack opinions and customs long estab- 
lished, a conciliatory and adroit method is requisite to 
obtain an honest hearing — a thing most rare among 
rare thinirs. 



100 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

The most important office of introductions is that of 
concihation. A favorable state of feeling is, if possi- 
ble, to be assumed. It is one of the more offensive 
forms of egotism to refer, at the outset, to one's personal 
relations to the audience, v^hen these are not prominent, 
— to assume the existence of hostile feeling, when there 
is little or no feeling. When, however, either the 
speaker or subject stands in an obviously unfavorable 
light before the audience, a conciliatory introduction, 
winning favor, or at least attention, becomes a matter 
of great importance. A fair hearing for one's self or 
subject may be invoked, the generosity and candor 
of the hearer appealed to, and the motives which urge 
to a broad and kind consideration of all the points 
involved be pressed. 

The general office of an introduction is to secure 
concurrent sympathetic action between the speaker and 
listener. When conciliation is not required, it may 
still be necessary to win attention, and to lead the 
thoughts, with some interest and expectation, to the 
theme. In proportion as the subject is before the 
minds of all, and has secured the interest of all, ' does 
an introduction become short and unimportant, since 
the condition of sympathetic action is already present. 

The qualities in the speaker which win interest and 
attention are frankness, earnestness, and self-control . 



EMOTIONS. 101 

An undisguised and open method inspires confidence, 
and assures us of the honesty of the speaker. We feel 
that we are not to be practised upon, and may, at our 
ease, listen to that which shall be said. Earnestness is 
always pleasing, and especially so in the presentation of 
opinions, as it impKes confidence in them and attachment 
to them. 

No man fails to feel the power of an earnest manner. 
There is an honesty in it which works conviction. Self- 
control, controlled emotion, is always requisite for the 
orator. Men are not to be driven by wild gusts of 
passion, but to be urged by just feelings springing from 
correct views. The speaker occupies the position of an 
adviser and guide, and no one can direct wisely who 
does not perfectly govern himself. No burst of oratory 
can, to advantage, pass the limit of perfect self-control. 
The orator must ever command the expression, and 
shape it strictly in view of the exigencies of the subject 
and the occasion. It is not every theme which will 
admit strong emotion, and misplaced eloquence is 
bombast. The theme must be the adequate source of 
all feeHng which is employed in urging it. 

Feeling, on the part of the orator, which seems to the 
audience excessive, destroys sympathy, and produces an 
effect quite the opposite of that intended. This may 
arise, not only from uncontrolled passion, but also from 



102 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

the too great rapidity with which the subject sometimes 
acts on the mind of the speaker. He must not only 
commence where the listener is, but be sure to keep 
with him through all the discussion. When the orator 
dissevers himself from the audience, and hastens on 
under his own momentum, he soon becomes a spectacle 
to idle or critical lookers-on. The increments of mo- 
tion, as when an engine toils at its load, are often small 
in oratory. Precipitation then becomes disruption and 
failure. In brief, sympathy — that is, unity of action 
— must both be secured and maintained : when this is 
lost, success becomes impossible 

Aside from the direct relations of the speaker, sub- 
ject, and audience, sympathy may be increased by many 
incidental methods. The circumstances of the occasion, 
the imagery and language employed, associated inci- 
dents, may furnish means by which to arouse and har- 
monize the feelings. Quick insight, delicate apprecia- 
tion, and ready resources must belong to the orator, that 
he may at once apprehend the exigencies of the case. 
He must first measure, and then meet, the moral state 
in and on which he is to work: and the most triflino- 
expedients, when prompted by the sagacity of a quick 
sympathy, may prepare the way for success. All speak- 
ing, all personal influence, is a strife between different 
and adverse states of mind which shall overcome and 



EMOTIONS. 103 

displace the other. The apathy of the audience may- 
overpower the speaker, or the animation of the speaker 
may arouse the audience : the first result is dulness ; the 
second, eloquence. To establish at any related point a 
oneness of interest and thought, is a preparation for 
success. 

The harmony of mental action, of which we have 
spoken, is not less necessary for the pleasurable and 
powerful movement of the mind of the speaker than for 
the right reception of what is said. While the orator is 
the source of influence, he is also the recipient of influ- 
ence. The audience speedily begin to react upon him, 
and the processes of thought commenced, the emotion 
aroused, can only be sustained and completed when he, 
in full sympathy with those addressed, feels the im- 
pulse of concurrent sentiment, the strength of growing 
emotion and deepening conviction. Nothing is more 
destructive of mental eflbrt than the inattention and 
indifference of those for whom it is instituted. The 
inspiration of thought is its effectiveness. Sympathy 
does not so much imply the absolute acquiescence of 
all in the views advanced as the attention and interest 
of all — a simultaneous movement of all minds under 
the direction (;f one toward a single object. 

When we remember that the oration is not simply an 
argument, a logical process, but a product filled with 



104 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. 

vitality, through the vitality of the speaker, a weighing 
out in overwhelming counterpoise the enthusiasm and 
convictions of his soul against the indifference and unbe- 
lief of others, we see at once how great and exhausting 
is the effort, how the whole man is taxed in the struggle, 
and the more taxed as the audience becomes larger and 
the oratory complete. 

. Sympathy with the mental movements of the orator, by 
which he is made the medium through which the subject 
is viewed and- felt, we have shown to be the condition 
of all emotion. The feelings to be aroused, and the 
methods by which this is done, demand further attention. 
The emotions have sometimes been divided by their 
relation to action into three classes : those which excite 
effort, those which restrain it, and those indifferent to it. 
This is not a permanent division, since the same emotion, 
under different circumstances, may belong to each of the 
classes. Fear, ordinarily used to restrain action, may 
almost as readily call it forth, or simply leave the mind 
apprehensive without any explicit determination. There 
is, however, this difference in the emotions aroused by 
oratory compared with those elicited by poetry, that the 
former, as at the time employed, have connection with 
some definite action, either tending to secure or restrain 
it ; while the latter either occupy the mind without 
directing it, or exert a general influence not determined 



EMOTIONS. 105 

toward any single effort. This determination of feeling 
toward a definite action is oratorical. 

The emotions constitutionally strongest in man are 
the affections which arise in connection with his moral 
nature. Through these, he is most deeply and justly 
influenced, and to know how to move them becomes the 
secret of benign and permanent persuasion. Closely 
allied with the moral sympathies as motives of action 
are the tastes. 

A second more constantly and immediately operative 
class of feelings are those of self-interest. As they are 
not in themselves wrong, and only become so through 
that perverted or excessive action by which they lapse 
into passion, they also afford a constant means of per- 
suasion. Neither at this nor at any other legitimate 
point does influence trench on the liberty of man. The 
whole career of a rational being is one of giving and 
receiving influence. Almost every movement of man 
among his fellows is one of persuasion, of inducements 
offered or taken, of example set for others or received 
from them, of custom current by common enforcement, 
of words spoken or heard. Liberty is. nt)t liberty from 
influence, but the liberty to be influenced by the most 
numerous and various considerations. 

A third class of feelings through which conduct is, 
unfortunately too often, affected, are those arising from a 
5* 



106 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

direct appeal to appetite and passion. To persuasion 
accomplished by these forces we cannot accord the title 
of eloquence, at least so far as it violates the law of just 
influence, and binds the man by base means to a base 
purpose. Oratory has nothing to do with this class of 
motives save to reprobate them, as resulting in that 
debasement of mind which must ultimately sweep away 
all higher inducements and forms of action. 

The sources of influence are, then, the affections, the 
tastes, and interests of men. If we are correct in 
affirming, that, constitutionally, right is the supreme 
law enthroned in every man, the moral affections become 
the soundest, safest means of persuasion. When the 
effective motive really relied on is self-interest, it does 
not follow that more noble considerations may be safely 
overlooked. When convinced that action is right, men 
will push farther and more boldly in it, though this fact 
be with them only an ostensible motive covering a more 
selfish impulse. It is the duty and advantage of the 
orator to furnish the best motives, though they may 
not be found solely the efficacious ones. If the greater 
may not exclude the less, certainly the less may not 
lead to an oversight of the greater. The oftener and 
bolder the appeal to that which is highest in man, the 
firmer and more legitimate is the influence established. 
When the question is one of interest, with no obvious 



EMOTIONS. 107 

moral relation, wLile tlie discussion should conform 
to the fact, oratory is greatly restricted by it. The 
canon, that the good man alone is the orator, has been 
so often recognized by rhetoricians because of the supe- 
rior hold which virtue gives to those motives and emo- 
tions by which, under a divine ordinance in man's 
nature, truth and right are carried from mind to mind. 
He who has no hold on the conscience must work uncer- 
tainly toward transient and superficial ends. While not 
in form accepting the assertion that eloquence is virtue, 
we would say, that it thence derives its life. 

The purpose and circumstances of the oration must 
define the emotions called for, and the question then 
becomes important. How shall these be secured? Feel- 
ing springs up in view of certain objects or truths fitted 
to call it forth, and it is, therefore, a first labor to pre- 
sent and establish these. This is the province of argu- 
ment, already spoken of, and the soundness of this is 
the occasion and justification of the emotions excited. 
The mind is most deeply moved by truth. Fiction acts, 
indeed, strongly on the feelings, yet, in part, because 
the absorption of the mind in the narrative leads it to 
overlook its unreality, and to accept its creations as real 
personages. Yv^hen we wish to quiet the emotion ex- 
cited, it is done by reverting to the fact of the fictitious 
character of the events. Plausibility, naturalness, and 



108 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

adhesion to the truth of character and relations — ^ the 
most weighty of all truths — justly give the novel a hold 
on the heart. This, in the rightly-governed mind, is its 
only hold. The feeling aroused by fiction is not that of 
oratory, and chiefly because the subject matter lacks 
that entire truth which belongs to the latter. The 
novel usually gives no definite direction to the emotion 
it excites, and thereby enervates the voluntary and 
active powers. Oratory, resting on naked truth, calls 
the whole nature into use, and thus invigorates it. 
Suitable facts and principles, those which involve the 
action proposed, are the first and indispensable steps 
toward complete and permanent conversion to our 
purpose. 

Among the many opinions received and doctrines 
conceded, comparatively few are constantly operative on 
conduct. To secure this obedience, there must be a 
clearness of apprehension and depth of conviction which 
belong only to a few familiar and govertiing principles. 
It is chiefly for this reason that persuasion becomes 
requisite. Truths are to be restated and reestablished, 
their consequences traced, their relation to present action 
seen, and the fearful force with which they shape events 
impressed on the mind. It is thus that the chasm be- 
tween knowing and doing is filled. Facts and prin- 
ciples are first proved, and then enforced by a survey 



EMOTIONS. 109 

of their relation to ourselves, to the events and persons 
about us, to the future in its more immediate and 
remote events. The action proposed is shown to spring 
from the case in hand, and to be of importance. 

Exhortation to feeling, which does not supply these 
its conditions, harasses and wearies the mind, and leaves 
it more dead than ever. The vividness of ideas is 
largely dependent on the imagination. Of this we shall 
speak at a later point. Much oratorical effort has for 
its aim to attach the ideas under consideration to those 
most familiar and operative in the minds of the audi- 
ence, and thus arouse concerning them that feeling 
which secures action. 

Here we see the gradual growth in pathos as the 
speaker proceeds. The* earlier steps are more coldly 
logical, — a truth is presented or established. As the 
thoughts begin to be occupied with it, it arouses interest, 
and works conviction. The importance of its relations 
is then unfolded ; it is made in familiar imagery to 
stand out as a governing principle in conduct, affecting 
daily and dear interests. Its immediate claims on con- 
duct are urged, and, according to the homely and 
emphatic expression, the truth is brought home to the 
heart ; and this is oratory. That which was not in the 
mind, or lay on its very margin, is brought into its 
immediate presence, and made, like the work of the 



110 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

painter, to fill the canvas, to stand distinctly and warmly 
out, in glowing colors. 

A law of progress is thus established. The per- 
suasive force steadily increases, till, in the conclusion, 
it is all gathered up, and applied to the purpose in 
hand. The movement of feeling is not precipitate or 
fitful, but well ordered and efficient, sustained by truth, 
and itself giving vitality to the truth. The growth 
of emotion, with and out of argument, gives it the 
needed validity and power, and renders it in full force 
at the moment when it is to be employed, when the 
mind passes from contemplation into action. 

When a weighty impression has been produced, as by 
an advocate, it may become the inquiry. How shall this 
be so far removed that the minds of the jury may 
return to a candid rejudgment of the topic? Unfavor- 
able feeling may be displaced directly or indirectly. It 
is directly displaced by overthrowing the foundations of 
proof on which it rests ; or, assenting to the general 
truth of the statements, by pointing out the untrue or 
extravagant consequences which have been deduced from 
them, and that conclusions quite the reverse logically 
follow ; or by showing that the subject is unimportant, 
meriting no immediate attention. Feeling is thus 
allayed by reversing the steps by which it has been 
aroused. It may sometimes, however, be so intense as 



EMOTIONS. Ill 

not to suffer this immediate and direct method. Time 
must be given for it somewhat to abate. The mind 
must be diverted to matter relatively indifferent, till, 
reverting to its ordinary state, it may again be occu- 
pied with a fair discussion of the theme. ' The mind is 
occasionally more readily vacated by considerations not 
wholly pertinent, than by those which call forth its 
opposition. 

There are two processes of mind which are especially 
liable to interfere with securing and directing emotion. 
These are the logical and imaginative. The first, 
becoming too severe and pervasive, makes a sound, but 
often a very dull and ineffective speaker. The product 
is not sufficiently vital. The method is too coolly ana- 
lytic, too cruelly anatomical, and, while those who 
choose to attend are instructed, attention and action are 
not necessitated. The heart needs to be more deeply 
moved — claims a larger part in the presentation. 

The imagination may also escape control, and cease 
to serve the ends of the orator. In this case, attention 
is usually gained, but no practical bent given to the 
thoughts. Interest is secured, but not action. This is 
liable to be the error of an orator too eager for success, 
and not sufficiently occupied with the subject. 

Much popular speaking is faulty in this direction, and 
relatively valueless for moral and social ends. A strong 



112 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

desire to reach fully the given end is the great protec- 
tion of the orator. This necessity makes the advocate 
explicit and plain in what he says. When the speaker 
must succeed or the failure become palpable and great, 
he has that which keeps him steadily in the one line of 
effort : he neither leaves the feelings dormant, nor 
arouses them to waste them* 



IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 113 



CHAPTER lY. 

IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 

Among the instrumental faculties there are two which 
the orator has constant occasion skilfully to employ — 
imagination and memory. For carrying on the pro- 
cesses of thought, these faculties are fundamental. 
That the mind should have power to retain and present 
to itself its conceptions is essential to all movement and 
clearness of thought. While, therefore, the imagina- 
tion and memory are not active for their own sakes, 
their action is requisite for all the ulterior ends of think- 
ing and feeling. 

Imagination is more frequently employed to denote 
the power by which, through memory, we restore sen- 
sible phenomena, more especially those of vision, to 
the mind; or by which we construct images under 
kindred forms, subject to desire. That use of the term 
in which it designates the presentation by the mind tof 
itself of all its conceptions, the most abstract, is less 
general and less immediately appKcable to oratory. 



114 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

The vividness and force of composition must depend 
largely on the skilful use of imagination. 

Sensible objects are most immediate and strong in 
their hold on the mind. Our senses are a first, con- 
stant, and undoubted source of knowledge. Value and 
pleasure early and chiefly attach themselves to sensible 
objects : around these the associations of life cluster. 
Hence no form of knowledge is so full and determinate, 
so immediate in its hold on the mind, as that received 
through the senses. There is an effort constantly made 
to present all the difficult matter of science through 
diagrams, models, experiments, and specimens ; since 
anything offered to the eye is thought of more avail 
than the most comprehensive description. That an 
orrery should become a medium of apprehending the 
solar system is a striking fact, showing with how short 
and weak a staff the mind sustains its steps. 

A direct appeal to the senses is seldom open to the 
orator. He may sometimes recall the pictures of mem- 
ory, and stir the mind powerfully through the image of 
vanished events ; but even this opportunity is^ of rare 
occurrence. His chief resources in removing the truth 
from its abstract relations, in bringing it near to the 
mind, are illustration and resemblance — instances of 
the action of the principle in hand, a kindred relation 
of things in other departments. In these the orator 



IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 115 

aims chiefly at the clearness and vivacity which it im- 
parts, and needs therefore to draw his imagery with apt 
and close agreement from departments most interesting 
to the audience. The comparison seeks to avail itself 
of familiar facts to flash light on those less known or 
heeded. The torch is taken from the very hand of the 
spectator, and its blaze cast upon the object. The 
images of the imagination, therefore, must not merely 
be in themselves striking and illustrative, but must 
be drawn from facts which have already hold on the 
mind of the listener. Intimate knowledge of the habits 
of feeling belonging to the classes addressed is requisite 
to give the imagination high power. 

It is the vividness of the ideas presented which arouse 
emotion, and thus carry over conviction into persuasion. 
Hence it is that the imagination plays so important a 
part iji oratory; Truth comes forth from its systematic 
and logical connections, shows itself operative m the 
events about us, and establishes its claim on action Ky 
its harmony with facts, and by the many instances in 
which it has already proved eflfective. The mind sees it 
and presents it, not chiefly as a principle, but as a law 
controlling the phenomena of the world. Enforcing 
this view, and transferring the mind from speculations to 
facts, many instances crowd themselves upon the imagi- 
nation. The nearer these are to the daily experience of 



116 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

men, the more necessarily and successfully is the topic 
urged on their attention. » 

It is emotion in the speaker which arouses the imagi- 
nation and fills the mind with imagery : thought can 
thus no longer proceed in naked statements, but at once 
seeks enforcement by a retinue of illustrative events. 
The imagination may not only be cultivated, but prac- 
tically directed to oratorical ends by cherishing the ten- 
dency to observe the resemblances between moral and 
physical things. The world is an inexhaustible store- 
house of images, and the mind that directs its attention 
to them will be more and more able to discover 
them. Since it is not sufficient, however, that the 
image in itself be perfect, but it must also be open to 
those addressed, a sympathy with men, with those to be 
immediately influenced, is indispensable to give to truth 
and its illustrations that pertinence and precision which 
impart to them their power. The ministry are more 
open to failure here than other classes of speakers, since, 
by their pursuits, they are liable to be more removed 
from men, and since their failures are disguised from 
them by the often remote and intangible character of the 
results expected. A definite end, pressing the mind and 
heart, is a great security to oratory. If aU that is 
empty and worthless instantly shows itself to be so, the 
rebuke secures the remedy. 



IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 117 

While the vividness of the impression made by the 
orator depends largely on the imagination, its perma- 
nence is due to its hold on the memory. A vivid 
impression does of itself tend, indeed, to permanence ; 
yet there are other distinct considerations. An oration 
that pays no heed to the memory, that seeks neither to 
make perfect nor easy the performance of its duty, may 
be .forcible for the moment, may have striking points, 
which may linger in the mind, but cannot unite to secure 
a single and permanent effect. The mind does not 
readily recall it, and thus cannot contemplate it as a 
single effort, strengthened by all its parts, and resting 
upon them all. The joint power, which should be the 
chief power, of the oration is largely lost without the 
free action of the memory. 

The memory recalls objects by a variety of relations, 
but always proceeds on some definite connection. We 
may restore in memory the persons at any time present 
in an assembly by the order in which they were seated, 
by the time of their entrance, or by the part which they 
took in the proceedings. The connections of place, 
time, resemblance, cause and effect, dependence, are 
among the leading ones employed by memory. The 
more perfect and complete the relation, the more readily 
does memory, by means of it, bind the parts together. 
A close logical connection of members in a whole, of 



118 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

reasons and conclusions, gives this faculty the greatest 
ease of . movement. Any relation, however, which 
makes of the treatment a chain of linked ideas, will 
impart ease and certainty to the mind in traversing it, 
and compactness and power to the impression. This 
accumulative power of memory, closely allied to logi- 
cal force, must be secured in all thorough and diffi- 
cult work. 



WIT, HUMOR, AND RIDICULE. 119 



CHAPTEE Y. 

WIT, HUMOR, AND RIDICULE. 

Composition finds among its occasional means, wit, 
humor, and ridicule. The best definitions of wit and 
humor are those furnished by Sydney Smith. Wit is 
eliciting surprise by an unexpected association of 
ideas ; humor is eliciting surprise by an unexpected 
association of things. Surprise and ideas are the im- 
portant words in the first ; surprise and things in the 
second definition. If any stronger feeling than surprise 
is aroused, the wit or the humor disappears. If the 
witticism is profane, to the religious mind it loses its 
force. Thus a truly noble object cannot be made the 
subject of degrading wit, while pretentious greatness at 
once becomes its butt. The dandy slipping into the 
ditch is a humorous object, but fracturing his limb, he 
becomes an object of pity. 

Wit is distmguished from humor by pertaining to 
ideas rather than to persons or tilings. Wit thus is 
more transient, spends itself in sudden sallies, while 
humor is more continuous, follows the narrative in its 



120 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

events, and mates up tlie comedy of life. Wit is more 
cutting and brilliant, humor more mild and pleasing; 
wit more admirable, humor more laughable ; wit more 
to be feared, humor more to be loved. 

Campbell has said, with but partial truth, that char- 
acter alone is the appropriate subject of humor, and that 
it always occasions contempt. Man, having more char- 
acter than the objects around him, caa present more 
striking incongruities. Yet Rosinante was scarcely less 
an object of humor than his master. That contempt is 
not always inspired by humor is shown in the fact, that 
we so often strive to give this turn to the narrative of 
our own adventures. Yet humor, like good nature, 
seems to be thought a little incompatible with the 
highest dignity. 

The resemblance of ideas in wdt differs from that in 
comparison in extent. In the last case, the more com- 
plete and perfect the agreement the better ; in the for- 
mer, similarity at one point should be attended with 
striking diversity at all others. It is this unexpected 
union and quick recoil of ideas that please the mind. 
A pun is an agreement in sound with different mean- 
ings. The mind is instantly foiled in the natural com- 
pletion of its work. 

The justice of the above definitions is seen in the 
fact that wit so soon becomes stale. Surprise quickly 



121 

disappears, and then the connection no longer pleases 
as. So, too, retort has always the advantage over 
attack, since the latter suffers premeditation, the former 
does not. The suddenness and aptness of the junction 
enhance the surprise, and a vdtticism of equal intrinsic 
merit given in reply secures the victory. These defini- 
tions also explain our admiration of wit. 'It seems to 
indicate great quickness and breadth of thought, that 
slight connections in so diverse ^and remote objects 
should at once be seen. 

The habit of mind, however, which wit cherishes, is 
obviously not desirable. Wit turns on secondary and 
trifling relations, not on fundamental agreements. The 
more philosophical our habits of observation, the more 
carefully and constantly we note important resem- 
blances, the less shall we mark or treasure the trivial 
connections of wit. The movement of mind from 
which wit springs is opposed both to thorough and 
serious reflection, and ought not, therefore, to become 
habitual. 

Nor is wit desirable as a constant accompaniment of 
composition or of conversation. The train of thought 
is too much diverted and interrupted by it. Take, for 
instance, the habit of punning. The pun demands a 
separate consideration of mere verbal relations. The 
thread of discourse is for the instant broken, and the 
6 



122 PHILOSOPHY OP REETOEIC. 

mind requires time to rally and reunite it. Let diver- 
sion of this sort recur several times, and the interest 
and attention due to the cardinal point are lost, and the 
main topic is abandoned amid the percussion of small 
wit. Undoubtedly, even the most serious discourse 
can, in the hands of a master, suiier occasional humor 
without detriment ; but more frequently laughter is 
secured at the cost of conviction. 

Another undesirajble result of wit, v»^hen constantly 
employed, is the insatiable demand to which it gives rise. 
Men love to laugh better than to think ; and the moment 
they find one who can indulge them in this respect, they 
require a constant exhibition of his power, and transform 
him, as far as possible, into a public buffoon. Great 
earnestness and strength of purpose are required to 
resist this tendency. The power is rare and exceed- 
ingly attractive, and flattering in the immediate popu- 
larity it confers. One who possesses* it is strongly 
tempted on all occasions to indulge it, more and more 
to rely upon it, and thus ultimately becomes a cracker 
of jokes. 

Notwithstanding these their dangers, wit and humor 
may subserve an important purpose. One can, indeed, 
succeed perfectly without them, but can do it a little 
more readily with them. To arouse interest, quicken 
the flagging attention, reheve prot -acted debate, aid an 



WITj HUMOR, AND RIDICULE. 123 

unpopular theme, parry assault, carry home to the ob- 
tusest mind an argument, and afford a decent retreat or 
brilliant exit, wit is most efficient. 

Ridicule is wit and humor used to influence opinion. 
This they can only do against the person who is their 
object. Placed in an unfavorable and humorous light, 
feehngs of contempt or aversion are aroused toward 
him. Eidicule is a legitimate weapon when employed 
against absurdities and follies. The first cannot be 
exposed by argument, being already opposed to it. 
Tl:>ey can only be met by pointing out the ridiculous 
figure they make when viewed in the light of reason. 
The second are mere idiosyncrasies, arising by accident, 
half unconsciously. They are treated, therefore, by ex- 
posure rather than by reproof. A counterpoise to the 
force of habit is found in the ridicule to which they 
subject us. 

Errors and faults, on the other hand, deserve and 
require in the outset more grave treatment, to be cor- 
rected by argument and reproof. Truth and right 
afford for these the just correction. When thi& remedy, 
however, has proved in whole or in part unavailing, 
they also may be lashed with ridicule. Public contempt 
drives men from positions which they will not yield 
to argument. 

The form of composition set apart to ridicule is satire. 



124 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

Tills alone is not very efficacious in reacliing its end. 
An age will laugh with its satirists, and yet burn its 
reformers. There is in ridicule alone too much of mere 
good-natured humor, or of personal pique and misan- 
thropy, greatly to disturb men. It requires settled 
benevolence, wisely, steadily, thoroughly pursuing a 
reformatory end, to arouse all their hate. Satire, as a 
secondary instrument, used with forbearance and love, or 
applied to the incorrigible enemies of truth, may serve a 
purpose. Irony is disguised ridicule, — an expression 
whose meaning is the reverse of what it seems. 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 125 



_ CHAPTER YI. 

LAWS or LANGUAGE. 

We now come to speak of means somewhat more 
external, — somewhat less of the very essence and sub- 
stance of discourse. 

In composition, the material in which the product is 
wrought is language. The skilful and correct use of 
language, therefore, becomes indispensable to success 
in all forms of literary effort. We are not, however, 
to look on language as a means to be mechanically 
employed in expressing a thought already realized. 
The connection between thous^ht and lauOTas^e is 
much more intimate and vital than this would imply. 
Thought is not only lodged and retained in language, — 
its very existence and form are conditioned on language. 

All thinking proceeds by language, as all life pro- 
ceeds by physical organs. Thinking is not the manipu- 
lation, the combination and resolution, of arbitrary signs, 
nor yet is it the coalescence of unembodied, undefined 
ideas into judgments. It is the union in propositions 
of definite conceptions previously fixed in words. Every 



126 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOPJC. 

step in limitation and definition is a step in language. 
The separated idea is defined and retained in its limits 
by a word, and every movement of thought originates 
or employs a word. The word and idea measure each 
other. The word is not more nor less accurate than the 
idea, but is exactly what the idea has made it. Its 
very birth was in the idea which it measures and 
expresses. This is strictly true when the word is con- 
sidered as belons^inaj to the individual mind which uses 
it ; but when the same word is employed by many, it ^ 
then comes ta have a more or less well-defined meaninsr, 
which the individual thought finds and accepts, rather 
than establishes. Words are the fi^otprints of the mind ; 
and though in a given case measured in their signifi- 
cance by the person who emploj^s them, like footprints 
they are to mark the way for others, and assume a fixed 
position and outline in the progress of thought, which 
those travelling after more or less accurately hit. 

While, therefore, language is instrumental in the 
mind's action, it is an instrument which realizes and ^ 
measures the thought, and is the necessary organ of 
that force whose product it is. Language and thought 
coexist in mutual dependence — the form and substance 
of one thing. 

Language is also the storehouse of knowledge, and 
this not merely, or <jliiefly, as arranged in definite lit- 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 127 

erary productions, but in its words, and in the marks 
left upon these of the labors they have performed, and 
the changes they have suiFered, in the service of thought. 

The generalizations, the distinct conceptions, the dis- 
covered and defined ideas, forces, and laws of science, 
are expressed in appropdate terms; and to apprehend 
these in their present and past use, is to possess the 
history of science, and all its rallying points. Were it 
not that mental acquisitions could be thus readily and 
securely lodged in language, the mind could make but 
little progress. Its utmost strength would soon be 
demanded to hold in steady view the truths already 
realized. The thought already put forth within a given 
language, and treasured by the words of that language, 
measures the available power and advantage at once 
presented to every mind which uses it as the medium of 
its thinking. Men who employ different languages are 
possessed of very diverse facilities for accurate inquiry, 
and have very different amounts of labor rendered to 
their hand. The starting point of thought is given by 
lano^uao^e, and with the ideas alreadv defined therein the 
mind proceeds in its work of distinction and discovery. 

From the relation of language to thought it will be 
seen at once that it cannot be stationary. It must share 
the fortunes and express the changes of intellectual 
action so long as it remains speech, — a vehicle of 



128 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

living thought. It may, by circumstances, be thrown out 
of the current of human action,* and as a dead language 
remain relatively unchanged, subject chiefly to the decay 
of time. But so lons^ as lanouao-e is used, it must be 
modified by the exigencies of use, and be impressed by ail 
the changes of the mental life of the nation whose it is. 

These changes of language are usually spoken of as its 
growth. They are allied to growth in this — that they 
take place, not by forces external to the^mind, but 
through the varying phases of intellectual life, the vital- 
izing principle of speech. They are the result of a 
living power acting on its own organs, and shaping 
them to its modified use. These modifications are also 
allied to growth in the fact that they are unconscious. 
The current of thought, in changing, changes its banks. 
It does not purpose to change under a conscious recog- 
nition of its own exigencies, but the exigency itself 
determines the change, and is brought to light in it. 
All the forces that act upon character act upon lan- 
guage, and act on language through character. This 
is true of speech when left to itself within its own 
national bounds. When violently acted on by a foreign 
tongue, the changes become more deep and radical, the 
life of language developing itself under new and arbi- 
trary conditions. 

The leading constituents of a language are its vocab- 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 129 

ulary and its grammar : it is the last that chiefly gives 
character to and defines it. 

The appearance of grammatical laws, of a system of 
grammatical construction, marks the birth of a lan- 
guage ; any great modification of these, its decay. 
Only slight and secondary remodellings of this frame- 
work of speech are to be looked for in its historical 
periods. Not till the laws of gramfnar are settled is 
there any language, any system and method ; and these 
established, the instinct of self-preservation secures 
their careful observance, lest •speech again lose its 
ground, and sHp into disorder. Grammar is the 
emerging of method, of order, and all further change 
is the slighter movements of completion. 

The period of bold changes is half anarchical, and is 
soon brought to an end by the strongest tendencies 
which it itself develops. 

The changes which longest infest grammar, and most 
disguise it, are phonetic. Phonetic changes, arising 
from the coalescence of two words, or of a root and 
final syllable, are the source ot its terminations ; and 
these, forever on the tongue, are further clipped, till little 
of their former semblance remains. The reduction of 
terminations to their smoothest, easiest forms is as inev- 
itable as the process which wears the pebble round. 

The changes of words, on the other hand, are great 
6* I 



130 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. 

tt • 

and constant, acconapanying language in all stages. 

These are the reception of new words, the loss of old 

words, and a modification in the raeaning of w^ords. 

It is evident, that in the progress of a nation, and 
consequent changes of its social life, there must be 
constant occasion for new words. The vocabulary, 
therefore, ever enlai'ges itself, now on this side, now on 
that, now slowly', now rapidly, according as one or 
another spirit prevails with the people. Here, from the 
nature of the case, there can be no hmit. But all old 
words do not retain tlftir ground ; some are displaced 
by better words, some by new words, and others, for an 
unrendered reason, drop off — the dead leaves of a past 
season. 

An equally serious and constant change is in the 
meaning of words. There is a tendency by which these 
become less specific and more general. A word applied 
to a given object or operation passes beyond this first 
use to objects or operations closely allied to it, till, 
creeping from resemblance to resemblance, it becomes a 
general instead of a specific term, or performs a dozen 
di&tinct offices. Words, hke kings, overpass their pre- 
rogatives. This is especially true in popular speech. 
Philosophy struggles to counteract this tendency, and 
bring back words to a more precise oflace. This accu- 
racy of thought gives to its language a technical char- 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 131 

acter. The mediums of popular and phiiosophical 
thought separate themselves more and more, owing to 
these tendencies, on the one hand, to lose the specific in 
the general, and,' on the other, to restore the specific, 
under more accurate conceptions, with new definitions. 

Closely allied to this enlargement of words is that 
tendency by which language becomes less figurative and 
more literal. The name of one object applied to a sec- 
ond, on the ground of some connection, at first presents 
both objects and the bond between them. By repeated 
use, however, the mind at length as readily associates 
the term with the second as with the first object, and 
the fact and ground of the transfer are overlooked. The 
word has ceased to be a trope. Poetry is thus forever 
losing her language, and is forced to restore her imagery 
by a new and bold application of terms. She thus 
shares and greatly intensifies the popular tendency, and 
makes the poetic use of language strikingly opposed to 
its philosophic use. It is not strange, then, that the very 
laws of language relax themselves in poetry, and give it 
an easier rein than prose. The philosopher and the 
poet stand at the two extremes in the pl.j^ of language, 
while the orator occupies intermediate ground, with the 
right to move in either direction. 

According as one or other of these counter tendencies 
to more careful analysis and limitation in the use of 



132 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

words, or to their wider application on the ground of 
remote and superficial connections, prevails, language 
becomes clear and vigorous, or loose and nerveless. 

Restraint and rule in popular and poetic speech even 
are the condition of permanent vigor and vividness. All 
the light that is struck out of language by lawless lib- 
erty is sure to lapse into deeper darkness. A flashy 
use of words becomes, like a spent fashion, least of all 
impressive. It not unfrequently happens that definite- 
ness is restored to a word by its exclusive use in a later 
meaning. The last duty performed by it, becoming the 
more important, draws it wholly away from its first 
office. There is thus a change without any necessary 
enlargement or restriction of meaning. 

The meaning of words is also constantly modified by 
changes in that to which they are applied, or in our 
conception of it. The terms employed in philosophy 
and religion are an illustration of the latter case, and 
many of those used in morals of the former. A writer 
on mental science cannot be perfectly understood till 
we know from what school of philosophy his language 
comes. Yet more marked is this in the case of religion. 
The words of any faith can, in their religious import, 
be apprehended only by the interpretation of that faith 
itself. Words applied to persons, to social and moral 
qualities, will lose and gain rank according to the char- 



LAWS OP LANGUAGE, 133 

acter of those who receive them. Though the term of 
praise or censure may for a little affect the man, he, as 
the stronger of the two, soon comes to impart to it his 
own character. The Puritan and the Methodist brought 
up these appellatives in the dignity of language to the 
point to which they themselves had ascended in the 
scale of worth. 

The changes to which language is subject are more 
violent and less homogeneous when it is exposed to for- 
eign influence, and built up as a composite fabric, than 
when developed chiefly from its own roots, and in com- 
pletion of its own laws. The ease and boldness, also, 
with which modifications are made, are much greater in 
the earlier than in the later history of a language, — 
while it remains speech than after it has become the 
vehicle of literature. The laws of language, as its 
structure grows, tend to greater authority and rigor; 
any departure from them is much more easily and gen- 
erally observed when made permanent to the eye in 
print, than when left to the detection of the ear amid 
the careless and slipping forms of speech. These 
changes, also, become more and more destructive of the 
ends and the mtegrity of language, and convert its 
growth into a perpetual transition from product to 
product, instead of the ripening of a single product. 
As the framework of a language assumes form, and 



134 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETOEIC. 

approaches completion, this movement must be rela- 
tively suspended, or it quickly undoes what has just 
been accomplished. 

Each language possesses its own words, and shapes 
and arranges them under its own laws. What is the 
legislative, the law-giving authority? Use. A method, 
a manner, unconsciously works its way into speech, and, 
once in possession, assumes as a principle of order the 
authority already tacitly conceded. The most unim- 
peachable principles of action often come from silent 
recognition in all of the necessity of a method, and from 
the ease and safety which it gives. Custom, the com- 
pendious digest of the more or less lucid experiences of 
men, is a great source of law. That custom which 
rules in language is termed use. 

Use is not all use, but go.od use ; and good use is 
present, national, reputable use. Different classes of 
men have not equal influence over language, and, there- 
fore, not equal authority in it. It is much more imme- 
diately and constantly the instrument of some than of 
others. One, with a few hundred vocables, employs it 
merely as a means of geering the wheels of business and 
physical life ; another, with many thousand words in all 
departments of thought, makes it the field of his con- 
stant movements, the receptacle of his labors, and, while 
enriclied by it, in turn enriches it with oratory, poetry, 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 135 

or philosophy. In the hands of the literary class does 
language chiefly show its power. It is they that enlarge 
and shape it into the efficient and flexible instrument of 
the mind. It is preeminently their product, and accu- 
mulates for them its wealth. In turn, therefore, it ren- 
ders itself into their hand, and from them receives its 
laws. 

But language is a medium, as well as an instrument. 
It goes between man and man, between the one and the 
many ; and that speech is national which is the medium 
of a nation's thought. Hence the literary man controls 
the nation's tongue, not by a private, but by a public, 
use of it. When, as a writer and speaker, he puts him- 
self in communion with men, in giving law to their 
thought, he gives law, also, to the nation's language. 
Those who most broadly and frequently make language 
the means of arousing the popular, the national, thought 
and feeling, chiefly control it. In this regard, the poet 
and orator have more influence than the philosopher. 
Use, then, is the use of reputable writers and speakers ; 
and this is general use. There may be many departures 
from it ; but these, arising from a class or section, will no 
one of them have the currency which belongs to good, 
to national, use. It is the reputation of authors which 
gives them authority, and therefore the most reputable 
use will beci^me national use. 



136 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

But, as already seen, language is not stationary, and 
use must belong to the time which it rules. It thus has 
the three characteristics of present, national, and rep- 
utable. 

The qualities of style immediately dependent on obe- 
dience to use are purity and propriety. The first is the 
use of the words and forms only of the language em- 
ployed ; the second, the employment of these in the 
meanino^ belonorinor to them. 

The question arises. Why this obedience? In the 
first place, it is the indispensable condition of the exist- 
ence of a literature. There must be permanence and 
stability in a language . to make it the depository of the 
literary wealth of successive generations. In a culti- 
vated period and race, language must not only be the 
intelHgible medium of thought between those of a single 
generation, but between successive generations. It must 
have -universality in time as well as space. Indeed, the 
coveted honor of literature is durability. Without this, 
the ephemeral success of wide circulation is of little mo- 
ment. The fulness, richness, and usefulness of a litera- 
ture will depend on the number of those who have access 
to it, the sympathy by which it lives among the masses 
in successive periods, and becomes the common recep- 
tacle and -source of mde-spread influence. But this 
growth and availability of literature can only be found 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 137 

in a lan2:uaare slow to chano-e, conservative of its laws 
and character. Progress becomes less destructive, more 
restrained and careful, averse to the new as new, and 
watchful of the old. Cultivated periods, under the in- 
stinct of self-preservation, that their labors may not be 
cast aside in a single generation as already antique, have 
attached increasing importance to obedience, and have 
armed criticism with a severe authority. 

There is, indeed, through this movement, some loss 
of flexibility and vital force in language ; but this is 
more than compensated by its stability, the fidelity with 
which it retains what is committed to it, the grand 
growing power with which it discourses to the successive 
generations of men. 

Such a language, like the classic tongues, may 
quickly give way before the violence of a disorganized 
society, yet even then reserve for itself an enviable life 
in the retreats of learning. The very crystallization of 
a language, which makes it clear and symmetrical, may 
make it fragile under the blows of violence. Nomadic 
speech preserves its flexibility, as the tribe preserves its 
freedom of emigration, by possessing nothing. 

Since, therefore, obedience is the condition of litera- 
ture, and literature is the consummation of all literary 
labor, it is neither unexpected nor unreasonable that it 
should be implicitly exacted. 



138 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

As it is the inevitable tendency of language, in tlie 
progress of cultivation, to become relatively stationary 
and feeble in its organic powers, all the more care is 
requisite in the reception of foreign words and forms. 
These are sure to remain, from the advanced point at 
which they have been received, more alien, more anoma- 
lous, less incorporated into the lauguagfe, than its earlier 
acquisitions, and fitted therefore only to mar its sym- 
metry, to perplex its orthography and orthoepy, and 
make it a rough mosaic of joined but.uncompacted parts. 
The symmetry and harmony, and therefore the ease and 
grace, of speech must, the moment its leading features 
are defined, depend on the care with which foreign 
tendencies and elements are excluded, and native and 
• analoo^ous words and constructions maintained. The 
causes by which the one result or the other is reached 
are indeed, for the most part, beyond the control of 
individuals, and undesigned in their effects; yet purity, 
and the effort by which it is sustained in a language, are 
the organic force of symmetry and order showing itself 
against lawless and ceaseless change. This tendency, 
therefore, should be accepted and cherished. Criticism 
should aid and make way for the vital force of speech, 
even if it may do no more than relieve it from petty 
foreign interference, which, like the stings of an insect, 
irritate and exliaust it. 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 139 

Not only do the permanence and symmetry of lan- 
guage call for obedience, but also its highest significance. 
A foreign word is stripped of its kindred. It does not 
by derivation and relationship stand in connection with 
a family of words by which it is expounded, and which, 
in turn, it helps expound. Bereft of explanatory .and 
pleasing associations, it remains an alien, doing but. 
coldly and mechanically the task laid on it. Words 
oftentimes do not suffer transplanting without a sad loss 
of grace and power. The awkward pronunciation 
which overtakes them, by which they lose citizenship 
at home without gaining it abroad, marks this devastat- 
ing tendency. The ready intelligibility and expressive 
power of any tongue will depend chiefly on the relations 
of its words one to another, and the mutual support 
they render. A word formed from an old root receives 
light from all its cognates, and is closely knit to the lan- 
guage of which it is the offspring. A self-developed 
and homogeneous language can be mastered on its own 
ground, its growth having been the consecutive and 
logical expansion of its own powers. A composite 
speech, on the other hand, is perpetually referring us to 
foreign sources, and is full of results due, not to the 
interior progress and necessities of national thought, but 
to historical and extraneous forces. Its growth is more 
political, and 'less strictly linguistic. Language thus 



140 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

loses that transparency which it possesses when per- 
meated through and through by a few leading ideas and 
native roots. Permanence, symmetry, and intelligi- 
bility, therefore, call for purity in speech, and give 
authority, in all literary and reflecting periods, to the 
law of use. 

But if this law is established, the composition of the 
individual will suffer much from its violation. Critical 
taste will be offended, an appearance of effort and 
affectation belong to the style, the obscurity of a novel 
phrase burden the thought, and that weariness overtake 
the reader which is the sure result of any unusual strain 
on words. The most simple style is the most perma- 
nently effective, and simplicity is no more immediately 
and obviously dependent on any one quality than on 
purity. To master a language and use it powerfully is 
a much greater achievement than to eke out expression 
with scraps and phrases borrowed from all tongues. 
The modest strength of the one method is placed by a 
long remove above the anxious pedantry of the other. 
No style can deserve the high praise of simplicity which 
is not pure, and no production will be likely to enrich a 
permanent literature which has not a good degree of 
this quality. 

Use is established for the most part unconsciously. 
Some would push the statement farther, and put the 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 141 

^owth of language wholly beyond the critical efforts of 
those who employ it. It is, indeed, only in the later 
and more reflective periods, that literary effort w^ill, of 
set purpose, curb wayward tendencies, and shape its 
instrument to its ends. The two forces which control 
the growth of language are the exigencies of expression 
and the harmony of sounds; We must remember that 
speech strives to communicate, to make thought intelli- 
gible. It does not, therefore, invent new methods, which 
as new would be unknown, and fail to serve its purpose, 
but it struggles to enlarge the old, and adapt them to 
its ends. Certain words are familiar, certain methods 
common : a new application of these, therefore, will not 
be unintelligible, but flash the thought at once upon the 
mind. The very object of expression, the very exigency 
of intercourse, will tend to maintain and enlarge^ ^le 
old as the only clear means of communication. But 
the compounds and grammatical combinations which 
thus arise, and in the outset explain themselves, will 
soon begin to be acted on by phonetic changes, which 
clip, and compact, and smooth the flow of sound. In 
this manner, the original intelligibility of the combina- 
tion may be lost ; but it has now by custom acquired 
the desired power of expression, and no longer needs 
the interpretation of its roots. Thus, even when speech 
builds up its fabric in a significant way, its forms 



142 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. 

ultimately assume an arbitrary appearance through the 
elisions they have suffered — through the inevitable 
modifications which abbreviate sounds and shape them 
to the mouth and ear. 

Of this the past tense in ed is a convenient illustra- 
tion. This termination is by Miiller referred to the 
auxihary did. I love did, I \o\ed. 

Though it is evident, that use founded on the exigency 
of expression, of communication, must tend to the 
familiar, the self-explanatory method, and that any word 
or form that should obtain a majority vote would thereby 
be pressed on the universal acceptance, yet it is also 
evident, that on many points there might arise, and for 
a time at least remain, a divided use. This shows itself 
more in words than in grammatical forms. These 
sj^ring up so early, and run so long a career, that at 
some point the balance is lost, and the weight of custom 
passes over to the one or the other method. Words, on 
the other hand, changing constantly, remain, for a time, 
in minor points, as spelling, and especially pronunciation, 
unsettled. 

While use, then, is absolute, and to be set aside at 
one's peril, with or without reason, where is the 
authority in the case of divided use ? It is -evident that 
supreme authority is lost ; and we have two or more 
methods open to choice. In any one of them we are 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 143 

right ; in none of them are we absolutely right, to the 
exclusion of the others. It does not follow from this 
that there is no ground of choice between different 
forms established by use, — that we are always and 
only to inquire after the decision of the majority, and 
if this can be determined, blindly adhere to it. We 
have (fhr idea of symmetry and perfection in language ; 
and of ease, power, and precision in the performance of 
its offices. These considerations often do not leave it a 
matter of indifference what forms shall be accepted. 
Criticism, a conscious exercise of judgment, may, and 
does, come in to aid in settUng fluctuating use. It 
is certainly irrational to forbid this exercise of reason, 
and contrary to facts to assert that it has no power. A 
great lexicographer, like Webster, can do much to con- 
trol divided use ; and every writer, who for a reason 
adopts a given form, just as much aids in establishing 
its authority as does he who unconsciously and carelessly 
employs it. The question is not whether scholars have 
consciously or unconsciously accepted a spelling or pro- 
nunciation. It is equally established in the one case as 
in the other. Men can be influenced by reasons, by 
example and instruction, as readily in this as in any 
other form of action. Criticism of language, therefore, 
is neither absurd nor impotent ; vacillating use may obvi- 
ously be much affected by it, and in rare cases we have 



144 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

no doubt that a well-established use might be first 
divided, and at length overthrown by it. We need, 
however, always to bear in mind that use is the law, and 
that he who rejects any one of its commands takes the 
risk of a reformer. A nation is to be persuaded at the 
peril of his own personal condemnation. It is not our 
idea of language that all its movements are, like the 
currents of the wind, only to be observed, and never, in 
the least degree, to be controlled. Much less do we 
suppose, that it is open to every humor of the critic, or 
wholly pliant in the hands of literary men. The uncon- 
scious life and necessities of the national heart and 
intellect shape it ; but this heart and intellect can them- 
selves be affected, and words, like ink punctured from 
a pen-point, be fastened in the very tissue of a living 
organism. 

Canons of criticism have been often given, which are 
fitted, and ought, to exercise an influence on literary 
men in the decision of all open questions of use. We 
give the most important of them. 

The analogy of a language should be followed. 

It is only by order, rule, that language becomes lan- 
guage. To extend this order as far as practicable is 
only to suffer the organic power of speech to show and 
complete itself. Want of analogy is so far want of obe- 
dience — is disorder. Strenuously to sustain single anom- 



LAWS OP LANGUAGE. 145 

alous forms and words here and there, is to inisist that 
use shall perpetually contradict itself. , Certainly, use is 
more honored by making complete the principle which 
it has established than by maintaining, in the very teeth 
of principle, an exception w^hich rests on no reason. 
This is to refuse to carry out the most authoritative and 
just tendencies of a language, — is to deprive it of 
symmetry, and make it a medley of exceptions and 
undeveloped principles. Undistinguishing obedience 
like this is irrational, and, when use is already divided, 
futile. 

These considerations are especially applicable to or- 
thography, since the spelling of a word is not decided 
by general use, but by the use of the press. The eye 
marks the spelling ; hence printed matter alone deter- 
mines questions of this kind. Nor is it the author so 
much as the publisher that decides on the orthography. 
The manuscript is not followed, but some standard 
which the publishing house has adopted, and to which 
all questions are referred. The lexicographer decides 
for the printer, and the printer decides for the public. 
If this statement does not cover all the facts, it covers 
many of them, and, in view of it, it is absurd to say 
that a language cannot be even greatly affected by 
direct, designed effort. Spelling in the Elizabethan 
age was much at random, and has been defined and 



146 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

settled largely through the influence of the dictionary. 
An early lexicographer must exert a great influence on 
orthography, and every dictionary which obtains a large 
circulation carries witJi it its spelling. 

Many questions of orthography have been warmly dis- 
cussed ; the one side striving to maintain irregular and 
wavering use, the other, to carry it over to a uniform 
principle. Among these disputed points have been the 
substitution of er for re in the few words which still 
retain the latter syllable ; doubling a final consonant — 
in such words 2i& fulfill — when preceded by a vowel, 
and taking the accent ; retaining the single consonant in 
the final unaccented syllable of the root when receiving 
a termination, as in traveler. 

The* rule of analogy requires that the English pronun- 
ciation of a word, incorporated from abroad into the 
language, should be preferred. 

A second canon is this : In cases of divided use the 
etymological relations of a word should govern its form. 

A word, itself a derivative, is often a root of other 
forms. It is desirable, therefore, that it should stand 
in harmonious relation both with its own root and the 
words which spring from it. "Defense," therefore, is 
preferable orthography to " defence," since it is thus in 
agreement with its source, defensio, and its derivative, 
defensive. 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 147 

It would be foolish to strive to correct all the mis- 
takes of etymology which have become incorporated into 
the language. A word, like a tree long planted and 
growing, cannot be lightly plucked up for every fault in 
it;s form. Algebra serves as good a turn as if it con- 
tained no solecism. Yet it does not follow that we 
should be heedless of all errors of etymology, that our 
words should blunder into their forms, and be united by 
no principle of order to their cognates. The intelligi- 
bility of a language, and ease of acquisition, require that 
its growth should find and follow a law. 

The words decompound and unloose give an in- 
stance of faulty etymology, since the prefix is not suf- 
fered to have its ordinary force ; but the root retains, in 
spite of it, its original meaning. 

A third canon is. Distinct words should, as far as 
possible, be kept distinct in form and meaning. 

Thus aught and ought are separated by using the 
first exclusively as a noun, the second as a verb. 
Gauntlet, a glove, and gantlet, a form of punishment, 
should be separated by . a diverse orthography. It 
is obvious that perspicuity of speech will be aided by 
this rule. When the same word has distinct offices as 
a verb and noun, etymology forbids a change of form. 
The English has striven. in some degree, though with no 
uniformity, to mark this distinction by accent, or by a 



148 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

change in the sound of a letter. Thus we have in the 
word use different sounds employed to separate the noun 
and verb ; in convict, conduct, 'present, pi'oduce, dif- 
ferent accent. In some words, the more questionable 
method of overlooking analogy and derivation has been 
employed, and we ha;Ve advise and advice; practise, 
practice. The weaker mark of pronunciation, leaving 
a clear etymology, seems the appropriate distinction. 

We add a fourth canon more immediately applicable 
to grammar. 

When a divided use is struggling to reject an anom- 
alous grammatical construction, not to be referred by 
analysis to any principle of syntax, such forms should 
be abandoned. 

Of this class are tnese in the auxiliary " had " : Thad 
rather go; I had better go ; I had as lief go as not.. 
In each of these cases would is the auxiliary which the 
forms of grammar require. The obscure combinations 
of verbs and participles are already so many in English, 
and occasion so much perplexity in the grammar, and 
opacity in the expression, as. to render every movement 
which tends to their reduction desirable. In the expres- 
sion, / ought to have done, the exigencies of grammar 
override those of the thought, and in the statement of 
a most simple idea a moral im[X)ssibility is involved^ 
TJte house luas being built, is also a conventional ex- 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 149 

presslon defined by custom, not by the intrinsic force of 
the words. The house being built, is equivalent to the 
house being finished ; adding, therefore, the past tense 
of the neuter verb simply carries the assertion into past 
time; and the expression, The house was being built, 
should mean the house w^as finished. In the expression, 
It looks as if he was a bad man, v^e have a past tense, 
but not past time. 

The same want of grammatical construction is some- 
times found in the pronoun. " Whom do men say that 
I am ?" "Satan, than whom none higher sat." In 
each of these examples a substitution of who removes the 
anomaly without marring the thought, and should there- 
fore be preferred. 

A fifth canon pertains to the meaning of words. 

Certain phrases gain a conventional force aside from 
their ordinary meaning, or involve a contradictory idea. 
These should be discarded. 

Most of them are ephemeral forms current in conver- 
sation, more rarely finding their way into print, like the 
following : To play out, to use up, the gamers up, first 
best, dance attendance. 

It is strange how much conversation can be made to 
flow in a few favorite phrases like these. In their origin 
giving to speech' a racy character, they often, in the end, 



-150 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

rob it of all freshness and value, and make it a dexter- 
ous transfer of pert phrases, the speaker losing sight of 
the barrenness of his thought in the smartness of the 
expression. As many of these forms as will die should 
be suffered to die. Their first and only merit lay in 
their novelty, and living on they fill speech with lazy, 
slouching, slang phrases, irksome in conversation, and 
wholly intolerable in composition. Some circumstances 
seem especially favorable to ^nerate and multiply these 
insects of speech, which buzz in the ear, occupying the 
attention without instructing the mind, and, with their 
affected smartness, put sober thought sadly out of coun- 
tenance. Among students in colleges quite a share of 
language is sometimes made up of a local phraseology 
utterly worthless, a jargon barbarous to every one but 
themselves, and unworthy of the ingenuity with which 
it is enlarged and employed. One may be a great pro- 
ficient in the phrases which accumulate in any clique, 
class, or department, a few of which escape and fly at 
large, and not only be very ignorant of English, but, 
for that very reason, the more ignorant of it, and un- 
able to wield it. 

Of those expressions which give a meaning contra- 
dictory, the three first may be given as an illustration. 
The Jirst three is the preferable form. Not every sol- 



LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 151 

ecism, however, is inadmissible. A two inch plank, a 
ten foot pole, are current, and almost inevitable, forms , 
of speech. 

The violations of puritj are three : barbarism, sol- 
ecism, and impropriety. 



152 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOEIC. 



CHAPTER YH. 

BARBAEISM. 

A BARBARISM is the use of a word which does not 
belong to the language: it may be a foreign term, a 
provincialism or a vulgarism, an obsolete word, or an 
unrecognized compound. Of these forms of barbarism 
the first is the most objectionable. It can only be justi- 
fied by necessity. It does not, indeed, behoove a com- 
posite speech, like the English, to despise foreign aid ; 
yet to be ever ready to receive and rely on it implies 
great weakness in native resources, and tends to perpet- 
uate it. Because the languao^e has drawn f^ithout re- 
straint from foreign sources, it does not follow that it 
may continue thus to draw. Early additions have 
become thoroughly incorporated, while later additions, 
sufifering little change, lie as it were on the surface, still 
alien to the tongue. The pedantry and obscurity of for- 
eign words should not be incurred without an urgent 
reason. An invention, a manufacture, introduced from 
abroad, may appropriately bring with it its name. Our 
own language should remain the adequate, medium of 



BARBARISM. • 153 

iative thought, and be able with sufficient honor to 
christen its own products, material and immaterial. 
While our goods are so poor as to need the falsehood 
of a foreign label, and our thoughts so flashy as to 
require the aiFectation of a foreign phrase, this form of 
imitation must prevail ; but genuine excellency will 
make the most of itself, and be contented with itself. 

The second kind of barbarism arises from giving 
currency to words restricted to a province or a class. 
Any language spoken over a wide territory will have a 
partially divided use, forms gaining currency in one 
province which are not recognized in others. Thus 
there arise provincialisms, or words of local currency. 
These are to be distinguished from vulgarisms, which 
are not dependent on place, but are words and expres- 
sions sustained by the careless and uncultivated against 
the decision of literary use. The first are, in a meas- 
ure, foreign to the language ; the last are the scum 
of expression, thrown off by it, or at least expelled 
from the careful forms of composition into conversation, 
always more hasty and heedless. 

To accept a vulgarism is to rescind a verdict already 
rendered, and this is not to be done without most press- 
ing reason. Dialects, on the other hand, in the earlier 
stages of a language, must act strongly upon it, and 
will always, as roots of the main trunk, maintain more 
7* 



154 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

life than it. The want of what is termed life^ in a 
tongue, is seen in its immobility, its formal and critical 
correctness, in the hesitancy and caution with which it 
either adds to the old or modifies it. The inflexible 
state into which language sets as it receives the impress 
of cultivation, straitens its vital power, and suspends 
its growth. Tlie force w^hich most counteracts this 
tendency is that of dialects. A less critical, more spo- 
radic, and free movement takes place in the shire, the 
province, the remote colony, or the distinct kingdom; 
and words and forms obtaining ground and strength 
here, may ultimately force a change on the parent 
speech. The independent development of distinct na- 
tions, like those of the United States and England, 
using the same language, while it may be the occasion 
of many vulgarisms, will yet render the parent speech 
more vital than if it were not subject to the strain of^ 
such diverse character and circumstances. The joints 
of speech, when employed in so many and so widely 
different and unclassical duties, cannot ossify. 

Provincial and dialectic use, therefore, will not of 
necessity, and always, give way to parent use, but will 
maintain its ground, renew the stock, and nurse the life 
from which it sprung. 

We need not mention the very many words furnished 
by America as names of new plants, animals, products, 



BARBARISM. 155 

and institutions. Aside from these, many good words 
have arisen, deserving adoption. We give, as exam- 
ples, hoatahle, availability, bread-stuff, caucus, bogus, 
chore, clutter, codding, raft, rafting, mass, mail- 
able, lyceunfi, location, lobby, salt-liclc. Some of these 
w^ords are new, others old with a new meaning. 

Vulgarisms originate in conversation — are its tropes. 
Colloquial use is quite distinct from literary use. Con- 
versation requires a dictionary of its own, and good use, 
even with the educated, maintains but a lenient and 
wavering authority in this unsettled border territory. 
The chief medium through which any of these vulgar- 
isms creep into more considerate literary efforts is the 
newspaper and the stump-speech. Made at home in 
this open antechamber, they afterward find their way 
into dignified quarters. 

A third form of barbarism is the use of obsolete 
words. Present use is not opposed to past, but to 
obsolete use. In the journeyings of speech, many 
words fall by the way, and, having dropped from the 
memory of man, have something of the strangeness and 
obscurity of foreign terms. Many expressions which 
pass for vulgarisms are but old forms still lingering in 
obscure quarters. A stable literature greatly retards 
the movement by which words drop away, or are 
crowded out by others. The English Bible has been 



156 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

a safe storehouse to most of the words committed to it. 
Old words deserve a certain regard, and should not be 
as closely questioned as new comers. 

The fourth barbarism is the use of unrecognized 
compounds. Here more liberty should be allowed than 
anywhere else ; and all the more in English, since the 
compounding of words has hitherto been so little em- 
ployed. Compound words have these advantages over 
foreign terms : they are self-explanatory, more thor- 
oughly significant, and stand in closer and more sym- 
metrical relations with the language. 

A tongue that begins to draw" largely from foreign 
sources finds this so ready a method as to be rarely 
forced into the construction of compounds ; and thus it 
becomes more and more composite, more and more 
composed of distinct and inflexible elements. Its 
words, like stones in a heap, lie apart, with no coa- 
lescence. Thus, often, when we wish an adjective, 
instead of constructing it from our own noun, we borrow 
it from the kindred Latin noun, and say calcareous soil, 
instead of limy soil. 

The use of compounds requires regulation, not severe 
restriction. Needed, euphonious and analogous com- 
pounds are not to be rejected. When the place of the 
compound can be readily supplied with a simple word, 
it, as cumbersome and superfluous, should evidently find 



BARBARISM. 157 

no acceptance. This is true of many compounds in 
self; of self-interest, in place o£ interest; of self-homi- 
cide , self-murder, and self-slaughter, in place of sui- 
cide. Uneuphonious compounds, as well-mannered, 
toell-moralized , down-looked, should not be accepted on 
any weaker plea than necessity. Though a barbarism 
cannot be as clearly established at this point as at some 
others, such words render style harsh and uncouth in 
a hiojh deoree. 

The most important consideration, however, in this 
class of words, is, that their construction shall accord 
with the analogy of the language. Compounds in self 
frequently violate this rule. The law of composition 
in this prefix is given by Campbell. " If the word be 
a substantive, the preposition to-be supplied is commonly 
of; if the passive participle, hy; and if the active 
participle, no preposition is requisite." Thus we have 
self-love, the love of one's self; self -condemned , con- 
demned hy one's self; and self -consuming . Under this 
rule, what shall we do with such words as self-charity, 
self-importance, self-communicative? The rule is, in- 
deed, somewhat too restricted, as shown in the word 
self-consistent, but draws attention to an important class 
of errors. 

It must be remembered in criticism, that language 
cannot grow without barbarisms ; and the practical 



158 PHILOSOPHY OF KHETORIC. 

question becomes, At what point shall the greatest 
liberty be given to its expansion? If it be granted 
in the line of derivatives and compounds, the language 
becomes more consistent and self-contained than by any 
other method of groT\i;h. 



, SOLECISM AND IMPROPEIETY. 159 



CHAPTER YIII. 

SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 

A SOLECISM is a violation of the laws of syntax. 
These laws express the principles by which the words 
of a language are combined into sentences. There 
must be some method of marking the dependence of 
words, one upon another, in the expression of thought, 
since a given thought is rendered only through a given 
dependence. This may be done by the arbitrary marks 
of declension and conjugation, by particles of relation, 
and by position. A language usually employs all these 
methods with a preponderance in each given tongue of 
one or another of them. The later and more composite 
languages steadily forsake the prefix and ternaination as 
marks of syntax,, and rely more and more on position. 
This renders necessary a correspondence between the 
order of the sentence and the inherent connections of 
the thought, and may rightly be termed the logical 
method. First comes the nominative, the subject of 
thought ; then, the affirmation ; and later, the results and 
incidents of the action or state. If the copula of the 



160 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

sentence is an active verb, we start with the agent, and 
descend through the action to its object ; if a passive 
verb, we start with the object, and ascend through the 
action to the agent. In either case the order and con- 
nection are strictly logical. 

In proportion as the understanding gained upon the 
passions of men, it is evident that these inherent con- 
nections of thought would more and more control the 
expression, and as evident that the marks of declension 
which accompanied the more free and passionate arrange- 
ment would become less and less necessary. As composite 
languages tend also, in the conflict of diverse methods, 
and through the unyielding form of foreign words, to 
lose declension, it is not strange that the two influences 
concurring have so far stripped the languages of modern 
Europe of the marks of syntax, and so much simplified 
their rules. The agreement of the adjective with the 
noun in gender, number, arid case, is an arbitrary agree- 
ment, and nothing is lost to the thought, though some- 
thing is to the freedom of arrangement when it ceases to 
be marked. 

There are two purposes subserved by the marks of 
declension and conjugation. A portion of these is 
purely arbitrary. They indicate no modification of the 
idea, but denote a grammatical dependence, the same 
in all cases. Of this sort are those which indicate the 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 161 

dependence of adjectives on nouns ; the agreement of 
verbs and nouns. Simple position in a more strict 
arrangement is able fully to meet the office of these 
terminations, and to set them aside with the introduction 
of nothing in their place. Another portion of these 
marks indicates a relation of a peculiar character, notes 
an additional circumstance, and, thus standing in an 
inherent connection with the thought, must, if dispensed 
with, be replaced by some word performing the same 
office. Of this sort are the case terminations of the 
noun. Nouns may stand in a great variety of relation, 
one to another, and these affixes not only indicate a rela- 
tion, but its precise character, and thus, aside from their 
grammatical office, take part in the expression. So, 
.also, the tenses, moods, and voices of the verb define 
the character of the action ; and if, therefore, the verb 
is stripped of these, the apparatus of expression must 
elsewhere be enlarged and made more cumbersome. 
These marks are replaced by prepositions, auxiliary 
verbs, and more lengthy expressions in significant terms. 
The most compact and knit expression, therefore, must 
ever belong to highly inflected languages, since there is 
here a condensation both of thought and grammatical 
mechanism into the significant terms of the sentence. 

Language, however, is not pure in its methods. 
Prepositions complete the full case declensions, and a 

K 



162 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

tongue like the English, well nigh devoid of inflection, 
still retains a few terminations expressing nothing but 
grammatical dependence. It is no more difficult to mark 
by position the dependence of the singular noun on its 
verb than the plural ; yet the one is aided in the present 
tense by a full conjugation, while the other retains a 
single form in all the persons. 

I love^ We love, 

Thou lovestf Ye or you love, 

He loves. They love. 

There may be as many solecisms as principles of 
syntax. It is our purpose to mark only a few of these, 
into which even good speakers and writers sometimes 
fall. The fundamental link of the sentence is the verb. 
This not only contains the leading affirmation of the 
sentence, and attaches it to the subject, but becomes a 
chief centre of qualifying words and dependent clauses. 
While many of the incidents and forms of action are 
expressed by adverbs, many are also incorporated in the 
verb itself. Tenses, moods, and voices compress into 
the verb the time and relations of the action, till this in 
every language becomes by far the most pregnant part 
of speech. In the use of the verb, therefore, even 
when the construction is as simple as that of English, 
solecisms frequently appear. Transitive are confounded 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 163 

with similar intransitive verbs — set vrith sit, lay with 
lie, "The coat sets well." "The bird is setting.''* 
" I sat myself down to write." " This principle under- 
lays the subject." These are common instances of 
this confusion. 

So also frequently verbs are employed in a transitive 
or intransitive use which does not strictly belong to 
them. "The guilty children of dust might come to- 
gether and transact respecting life and blessing." 

The past tense and perfect participle are, when dif- 
ferent, often used one for the other. The little conju- 
gation that we retain we seem very liable to forget, 
and to be constantly willing to substitute the regular 
forms in ed for the older and stronger ones. Begun 
is so often used in the past tense for began, as to be 
now nearly ready, by a tendency seen in other verbs, to 
claim the usurped place. Conversation is even troubled 
to keep distinct forms so separate, as did and do7ie. 

The rule is frequently forgotten, that conjunctions 
unite in the same construction only like forms of the 
verb. In the passage, "If thou bring thy gift to the 
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath 
aught against thee," we have an indicative and subjunc- 
tive included under the same regimen. Either mood may 
be used, but the one excludes the other. The subjunc- 
tive mood in English has few distinctive forms, and 



164 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOUIC. 

shares its duties witli the indicative. The indicative has 
gained ground on the subjunctive to such an extent that 
there remain but few offices which belong exclusively to 
the latter. 

The indicative mood marks time more strongly than 
any other ; the subjunctive and potential constantly 
vacillate in this respect, and forms associated with the 
past may express both present and future time, requiring 
the context for their determination. "If he chose^he 
might do it," " He acts as though he thought I were a 
fool," are expressions marking this fluctuation. In 
€©n sequence of this tendency of the indicative more 
explicitly to define the assertion in time, or from the 
idea of customary action which it involves, the subjunc- 
tive mood occasionally becomes more appropriate. In 
the clause, " If he were to do it," the vagueness of 
tkne is more consistent with the subjunctive than with 
the indicative mood. Hence has arisen a rule of very 
general application, that when doubt and futurity are 
both involved, the subjunctive is the appropriate mood. 
" MtBn do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his 
soul when he is hungry." If the indicative were here 
used, it might indicate a habit at war with the sentiment 
of the assertion. 

The English verb is quite full and explicit in marking 
time ; and at this point, therefore, careless composition 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 165 

is especially liable to inaccuracy. Absolute time is 
chiefly denoted by the indicative. The present tense 
has, where the meaning of the verb requires it, two 
forms denoting respectively customary present action, 
and an act as now transpiring — he speaks, he is 
speaking. Both of these forms of the present tense 
take a passive, giving the often criticised and somewhat 
awkward expression, " The house is being built, "^^ or the 
older form, " The house is a building ; " and, " A house 
is built,^^ " Houses are built." A general truth 
having no immediate reference to time, not coming 
under its limitations, is alhed to customary action, and 
is always stated in the present. Such truths have an 
omnipresence that renders this their appropriate tense. 
" Happy is that people whose God is the Lord." 

In the past tense the English verb expresses three 
relations of time under two forms : an action transpiring 
at a definite past time, an action performed at a definite 
past time, and a customary past action. The last two 
oflaces are discharged by the same form. The imperfect 
is the definite historical tense, and except when marking 
a customary action, — a fact more frequently indicated 
by additional words in the context, — it can be met by the 
inquiry. When? "He spoke," "He was speaking," both 
demand for their explanation a definite time, attaching 
the assertion in the thought to a given moment. Tlie 



166 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

same is true of a customary past action, except that the 
time is lengthened from a point into a period. "Houses 
were built of wood ; " that is, during a certain past 
period. 

The perfect tense leaves the assertion in the whole of 
the past, without attaching it to any one moment ; or 
carries it through the whole of the past, denying it of 
every part of it. "I have accomplished it." " ]N^o man 
has ever accomplished it," present the two forms. The 
perfect is said to have reference to the present. This 
it does only by implying that the time included comes 
down to the present moment, not by implying that the 
act asserted has just taken place. "IAa?;e" — at any 
past time whatsoever down to the very latest instant — 
" spoken J^ If, therefore, the assertion lies in anything 
less than indefinite past time, beginning at the present 
moment, the perfect tense cannot be used. We cannot 
say, "Rome has arisen,^^ since the assertion is not 
applicable to the period which has intervened since its 
decline. We can say, " Babylon, Greece, Rome 
have arisen and f alien, ^^ since individual states are 
here taken to represent a movement which has con- 
tinued to the present moment. The essential point 
of the perfect tense is, that the assertion does not 
pause till it has reached the present. The time may 
be restricted by the nature of the case, or explicitly 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 167 

by words, in its stretch backward, but it must reach 
downward to the point now occupied. 

The pluperfect and future perfect, unlike most of the 
tenses of the indicative, express relative time, and 
always imply a primary statement, of which they are 
the complement or correlative. The auxiliaries have 
and had mark the priority of the action to some speci- 
fied or implied time — a time usually involved in another 
leading verb. In this respect the pluperfect and future 
perfect are like the tenses of the infinitive ; the present 
infinitive denoting a time the same with, or subsequent 
to, that of the verb on which it depends ; the perfect 
infinitive, a time prior to that of the principal assertion. 
To the last rule there is an exception in the clause, 
" He ought to have done it." A grammatical necessity 
here gives rise to an expression impossible in the idea 
it literally conveys, and, by the violation of a general 
rule, the language gains the power of perspicuous 
expression in a single case. Ought ^ having the same 
form in the present and past, the time-mark which 
belonged to the indicative is transferred to the infinitive, 
and a solecism accepted in place of obscurity. The law 
of means yields to the exigency of the end. In these 
tenses, where the auxiliary is intended accurately to 
define the relative time, solecisms frequently arise by 
their employrnent in a more general use. 



168 . PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

While Quay, can, and 'inust, might, could, would, 
and should are not confined to present and past time, 
respective!}^, — the last series, almost as frequently as 
the first, referring to immediate action, — in correlative 
clauses they preserve this distinction. Were correlates 
with would: "If he were there he would do it." Is 
correlates with Qnay : "If he is there he may do it." 
Might, could, would, and should correlate with each 
other; as also may, can, must, and will: "If this can 
be done he may be here," or " he must be here," or " he 
will be here." 

Has correlates with may, can, and must; had, with 
could, would, and should : — 

" If the house has been built, it may be occupied." 

" If the house had been built, it "might be occupied." 

In this last expression we see that the pluperfect 
tense does not necessarily imply priority to a past action, 
but either to past or present time. 

Subjoined are clauses containing some of the more 
frequent solecisms of tense : — 

" He has given me aU that I required for my pur- 
pose." " They continue with me three days." " It 
was a truth which he was careful to enforce, that the 
civil rights of men were equal." "It is diflficult to 
say what the world would have been if Christ had 
not come." 



I 



SOLECISM AND IMPKOPRIETY. 169 

"If the work should be finished as proposed, he 
will be greatly pleased with it." " He that was dead 
sat up and began to speak." "If he is there he might 
do it." "Meeting with a common beggar upon the 
road, as he went to relieve him, he found his pocket 
was picked. ^^ "What shall we do that we might work 
the works of God?" "It may well seem as if other 
influences than such as are now in operation would 
require to be put forth before the expected good can be 
realized." 

" It was killed on the ice in the weakest part of the 
lake (Champlain), on the 23d of February, thirteen 
days after the surface was entirely frozen, except the 
usual small creeks, and a month or two after the ice 
closed at all points north of the place where the seal 
was found." 

A peculiar* distinction in the use of tenses is spoken 
of by Webster. " When we use the present tense, it 
implies uncertainty of the fact, and when we use the 
preterit, it implies a negation of its existence. Thus 
a person, at night, would say to his friend. If it rains 
you shall not go, being uncertain at the time whether 
it did or did not rain ; but if, on looking out, he per- 
ceived it did not rain, he would then say, If it rained 
you should not go, intimating that it did not rain." 
The explanation of this use seems to lie, in part at 
8 



170 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

least, in the law of correlation pointed out, '' You shall 
not go," necessarily expresses the one conclusion, and 
" You should not go," the other ; but these must correlate 
respectively with the present and past tenses. 

There is an occasional misapprehension of what con- 
stitutes a verb, leading to a false passive. Campbell, 
after a careful discussion of the passive voice, recognizes 
as correct the syntax of the sentence, "The rock was 
split upon by the vessel." Verbs are most appropriately 
divided into transitive and intransitive, since this division 
rests on a grammatical distinction, — their power of gov- 
ernment, — and not on the meaning of words. Most 
of those verbs called neuter are not neuter, and it is a 
question of no grammatical import whether they are 
neuter or not. Grammatical distinctions should rest 
exclusively on grammatical grounds. All transitive 
verbs can take a real passive ; intransitif e verbs, when 
assuming a passive form, rob it of its force, as in the 
words, " He is gone^ There is a large class of verbs 
in English compounded with a preposition ; and we re- 
quire a rule to distinguish them from those cases which 
arise from the accidental union in position of a verb and 
preposition. Why have we compounds in the clauses, 
" He keeps up the establishment," " He entered on 
his duties," "They/e^/ out by the way," "The acid 
acts upon the metal ; " and not in the clauses, " He 



I 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 171 

kept up the hill," " He entered on horseback," " He 
fell out of the window," "I act upon this principle"? 
Evidently because the words in the one series coalesce 
in a new meaning : " He Icept up^^^ that is, he main- 
tained the establishment ; " Pie entered on^'' that is, he 
commenced his duties ; while in the other series, both 
verb and preposition retain simply their original power. 
Only where we have a true compound, and that com- 
pound an active verb, can we rightly construct a passive. 
In the expression, "The ship split upon the rock," 
there is no proper union of the verb and particle, and 
therefore the form was split upon is not legitimate. 
Still worse is the passive, justified by the same author, 
in the sentence, "They were fallen out with by her." 
In this case, the preposition with follows after, but is 
not compounded with, the verb. 

When the active verb governs two objects, either of 
them may become the subject of the passive, and we 
have two forms of the same idea. " My father allows 
me a horse," becomes, in the passive, either, "/ am 
allowed a horse by my father," or, "A horse is 
allowed me by my father." 

As a single further illustration of solecisms, numer- 
ous in the other parts of speech as weU as in the verb, 
we instance a use of the conjunctions either, neither, 
when more than two suppositions are made. " He can 



172 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

neither remain here, nor return to his friends, nor pro- 
ceed to advantage." The termination er, as in the 
comparative of adjectives, has frequently, in Enghsh, a 
dual force, which prevents the use of several particles, 
when more than two objects or ideas are concerned. 
Either, neither, other, another, ivhether, former, 
latter, are words of this character. 

The syntax of the English, though usually thought 
to be simple, yet requires for its complete knowledge 
and observance very considerable attention. Aside from 
the fixed rules, the language has developed a pref- 
erence for certain forms, which, if not always imper- 
ative, yet mark a pure and elegant handling of the 
national speech. It belongs to grammarians to lay down 
the laws of construction, and point out the several sole- 
cisms which arise from their violation. The rhetorician 
has only occasion to mark the general character of 
offences against purity, and the value of this quality 
of style. 

The third violation of the laws of language is an 
impropriety. It is the employment of words in a mean- 
ing not given them by use. 

A barbarism is an offence against etymology ; a sole- 
cism, an offence against syntax; and an impropriety, 
an offence against lexicography. Purity is the employ- 
ment of words which belong to a language in the 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 173 

construction and meaning assigned tliem by that lan- 
guage. 

There are two kinds of improprieties — ,those of 
words and those of phrases. The impropriety in the 
use of words varies from a slight departure from the 
most appropriate application of a term to its entire per- 
version. Synonymous words are especially liable to a 
careless use, which overlooks their precise power. The 
beauty and accuracy of expression must depend very 
much on the care with which the entire force of language 
is preserved — the precision and skill with which it is 
employed. The fulness and finish of the picture de- 
pend on the pliability of the colors, and the delicacy of 
the touch ; the fulness and finish of an expression 
depend on the clear outline of the thought, and the 
exactness with which the language is fitted to it. The 
loose style is ever full of now bolder, now slighter 
improprieties. The nicer shades of meaning are lost 
sight of, and a rabble of words are all ready to run on 
any service. Words allied in etymology are often con- 
founded, as tragic, tragical ; obnoxious, noxious ; 
transcendent, transcendental ; admit and admit of. 
There is no limit to the variety and number of impro- 
prieties which may arise in the use of words. 

Nouns with two plurals have frequently assigned 
them a distinct meaning for each form ; as, genii. 



174 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

geniuses ; brothers, brethren ; indexes, indices. We 
subjoin a few improprieties in words : — 

" No man has a type of face so clearly national as the 
American. He is acknowledged by it all over the con- 
tbient." 

^^Immediately these schemes failed they were pre- 
pared to throw the nation overboard." 

" The relation still consisted with the preservation of 
their religious privileges." 

" Many of the English admitted of no such interpre- 
tation." 

Impropriety of phrases is of more rare occurrence, 
and tends to confine itself to a few expressions. In 
the sentence, " He of all others ought not to do it," the 
words convey a meaning, by the use of the language, not 
intended. He of all others, takes the place of the kin- 
dred form, He of all persons, and is made to perform 
an office which use has assigned the latter words. This 
class of errors is rightly termed an impropriety of 
phrases, since one form is put for another with no viola- 
tion of grammar, but with an inappropriate meaning. 

Purity is chiefly valuable as a quality of style through 
its connection vrith perspicuity and elegance. Though 
not capable alone of compassing these higher qualities, 
it is nevertheless essential to them. Language assumes 
form and law for the ease and clearness of expression ; 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 175 

and ease and clearness demand, in turn, the maintenance 
of law. Purity, though a somewhat negative qual- 
ity, is a condition for high, positive, and permanent 
results. Impurities do not always arise from the same 
cause, nor are they always equally injurious. 

The introduction of new words frequently springs 
from pedantry, or from the love of novelty. The style 
is made one of oddities and conceits, that it may win an 
attention which the thought is not able to secure. Many 
barbarisms and some improprieties reveal the wriggling 
effort of a writer who aims at impression rather than at 
truth, and who rests his reputation on the manner rather 
than on the matter. 

This method is especially unfavorable to the orator, 
as it weakens the fervor of address, and casts suspicion 
on its sincerity. A conceited style is even more at war 
with energy than with perspicuity, constantly breaking 
up and turning aside the current of thought with some 
strange, or strangely applied, word. Composition which 
aims at amusement may, like a masquerade, proceed 
with odd and fantastic show. 

Solecisms most frequently arise from ignorance and 
carelessness. They, therefore, especially offend against 
elegance. In labored composition, where time is given 
both to the writer and reader, these become grave 
offences, marring the beauty of all pohshed effort. Po- 



176 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETOEIC. 

etrj strives to secure a finish and flow of style which 
places the means in harmony with the end. In oratory, 
especially in extemporary eflPort, on the other hand, sol- 
ecisms are overlooked, and readily referred to the haste, 
the impatient earnestness, of the speaker. A little care- 
lessness in the means is pardoned in one thoroughly 
occupied with the end. 

Solecisms, however, often mark a loose, ravelling 
style, which needs to find correction in more compact 
and restricted sentences, in well-knit and firm asser- 
tions, and clearly defined dependences. The beginning 
of a long, lazy sentence is forgotten, and hence its 
grammatical demands overlooked. A promised correl- 
ative is not given, and the assertion closes wide of its 
commencement. Extemporary eflPort is especially liable 
to be tangled in the meshes of a complex sentence, and 
at last to cast them aside still unelucidated. Solecisms 
which arise from a weak coherence of the parts of a sen- 
tence ought especially to be guarded against, as indi- 
cating indolent thought, and tending to inadequate and 
obscure expression. 

A sentence is the first complete, organic product of 
thinking, and, in its precision and strength, reveals the 
vigor of the process under which it has arisen. A com- 
pleteness of grammatical relations marks the sentence. 
It is a fuU circle of dependences. A few conjunctions 



SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. 177 

imply a previous assertion, and a few pronouns seek 
their antecedents outside its limits; aside from this, 
every relation must be finished within the complete 
sentence. 

A large class of improprieties arise from careless, 
vague thinking, — a use of words as empty, slipping 
signs, with no constant reference of them to well-defined 
ideas, which they are employed to denote. This class 
of offences, therefore, greatly interferes with perspicuity, 
especially in all discussions which require accurate and 
severe statements. If the concepts — the bundles of no- 
tions which lie back of the words, and which they pur- 
port to represent — are not the saine for all minds, or 
for the same mind at different moments, it is evident 
that the assertions made by means of these words can 
cover no common ground of thought, and can be safely 
linked in no chain of reasoning. It is not more neces- 
sary that the letters of algebra remain, during the reduc- 
tion of an equation, true to the representative duty at 
the outset assigned them, than that words adhere firmly 
to the restricted ideas with which they are charged. 
Language is only a precise and safe medium of thought 
as each word receives and always discharges definite 
and recognized offices. Otherwise used, it becomes the 
means of constant deception, misapprehension, and mis- 
take. The person who carelessly employs it is often, 
8* L 



178 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

most of all, deceived by it. Many controversies end in 
each party's assigning to his adversary a discarded idea, 
which neither will now accept as having been his own ; 
in both parties' claiming a position, at length, recog- 
nized as right. 

Use is only too vague in determining the meaning of 
words ; if we depart still farther from precision, it must 
be greatly at the expense of clearness. 



BOOK III. 

CHAPTER I. 

STYLE. 

It remains to speak of the methods of composition 
— of style. Style is the peculiar mode of expression 
which belongs to an author. This, in some of its lead-, 
ing features, is often similar in the writers of a period 
or of a nation. Style is dependent both on internal and 
external conditions. It receives its peculiar form chiefly 
from the mental movements of which it is the expres- 
sion. The thought and language are realized together, 
and the same tendencies that determine the one must in 
this very act definitely fasten the other. Language is 
often spoken of as the garment of the thought. The 
figure implies by far too distinct and independent an 
existence in the thought. This, like the life of a plant, 
is conditioned by and to the form in which it abides ; 
and though this form may be greatly modified by the 
external forces to which it is subject, yet this modifica- 
tion reacts strongly on the life in the one case, on the 

(179) 



180 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. 

thought in the other. The mind, with a given mastery 
of language, with a certain fulness and force of vocabu- 
lary, a certain ease and accuracy of composition, — the 
complex result of habit and education, — sets itself to 
the task of reaching and expressing its thoughts. 

Under these defined external conditions the mind real- 
izes a product, shaped by its own laws and tendencies 
of action. The force from within has been modified by 
the means at its disposal ; and in the result, both inte- 
rior and exterior causes, both original power and educa- 
tional advantages, blend and reveal themselves. 

There is no such thing as an absolutely good style. 
Composition is a means, and, like all means, must be 
governed by the end. With each variation in the end, 
therefore, style, or method, must be modified. In reach- 
ing the same end, also, minor varieties of method are 
not only admissible, but desirable, as expressing the 
varieties of character, and making each product more 
individual and personal. That which iB peculiar with- 
out being faulty imparts freshness and variety, and adds 
to the scope of literature. 

It is, therefore, only in certain general characteristics 
that all good styles agree, and not in the details by 
which specific ends and adaptations are reached. Even 
the leading qualities of good style will stand in different 
relations to each other, and exist in different degrees, 



STYLE. 181 

according to the particular object to be secured. There 
is no uniform preponderance of one over -another, or 
balance of one with another, fitted for all places and 
occasions. A great variety of adjectives may be applied 
to style, as terse, vehement, copious, verbose, which ex- 
press different degrees of praise or of censure, according 
to the specific object in the light of which the effort is 
to be judged. What is succinct for one audience is 
copious for another and verbose for a third. No abso- 
lute standard is to be set up^ but that we may pre- 
serve the force of Nature, something of her freedom is 
to be allowed. A fixed and staid perfection is one of 
the least perfect of results. The contemptuous criticism 
of pedantic and formal art marks a decay of power. 

The primary qualities of style are three : perspicuity, 
elegance, and energy. They make answer in composi- 
tion to the three questions. What is it? What its pro- 
priety ? What its force ? Through perspicuity we realize 
a definite intellectual product ; through elegance we 
secure in form its highest adaptation to the end ; and 
through energy its highest adaptation in force. 

Of these three, the fundamental quality is perspi- 
cuity : without it, a production can neither be elegant 
nor energetic. We cannot have elegant form till we 
have form, nor forcible sentiment till we have sentiment. 
It is the light which perspicuity sheds through the Intel- 



182 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

lectual product which reveals its elegance and energy. 
Thought, that it may have the second and the third 
quality, must have the first. Without this, it yet lies 
half hidden amid things unshaped, and can neither fur- 
nish the form of beauty nor the substance of strength. 

These leading qualities of style stand intimately con- 
nected with the three divisions of mental faculties : un- 
derstanding, emotions, and will. Perspicuity arises 
from the most perfect action of the intellect ; and per- 
spicuous composition alone can discipline and meet the 
wants of mind. There is here a double relation ; per- 
spicuity stands both as a result of, and a means to, 
successful mental effort. 

Elegance springs from, and expresses, delicacy of 
feeling. The emotional nature, in its more sensitive 
and esthetical action, is the source of refined sentiment 
and of those chosen and elegant forms which appropri- 
ately embody it. The imagination, though often em- 
ployed in the service of pure thought, only paints in 
warm and glowing colors under the influence of the feel- 
ings. Elegance, therefore, as a quality of style, stands 
most intimately connected with the emotions. 

Energy expresses the patience and vigor with which 
an end is pursued, and these qualities are due to wUl. 
Desire, assuming a settled determination, imparts direc- 
tion and earnestness to the movements of the mind, 



STYLE. 183 

and, hence, energy to that language which reveals them. 
Energy is rooted in will; without it there can be no 
persistency, no power. 

These three qualities stand also connected, respec- 
tively, with the three forms of composition. Prose, 
philosophical prose, having chiefly to do with the con- 
nections of facts or the logical relations of thought, 
above all requires perspicuity in their conception 
and statement. Accuracy and distinctness are here, 
as in a working-plan, or an illustrative drawing, the 
qualities most requisite. Statement is the thing aimed 
at ; and statement is statement no further than it is 
lucid. 

In poetry, on the other hand, pleasure is sought ; and 
it is a condition of high-wrought, delicate enjoyment 
that it shall everywhere meet the laws of taste. It 
is the perfection of the product that pleases, and this 
perfection seeks after a complete and elegant form. 
Hence, elegance, as the condition of the highest pleas- 
ure, becomes a ruling quality in poetry. 

In oratory, will is to be influenced ; and this is accom- 
plished chiefly through the energy of argument and 
emotion. The strength of the thought — not its intrinsic 
and latent strength, but its open, demonstrative power 
— is now the point of interest, and style is to be judged 
by its immediate, popular force. Those means are the 



184 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

best, and those alone, which are most truly effective. 
Moral force, moving steadily toward a defined end, is 
the essential characteristic of oratory ; and this is energy. 
Not only does no one of these qualities exclude the 
others, they are mutually dependent on each other, and 
one, when present in a high degree, involves a meas- 
ure of the remaining two. Though the means of reach- 
ing these qualities of style are allied, we yet have occa- 
sion to speak of each separately. 



PERSPICUITY. 185 



CHAPTER n. 

PERSPICUITY. 

Among the qualities of a good style, perspicuity is 
plainly the most essential. It must accompany the 
writer in all forms of effort, and be found in every 
sentence. It is not, however, so much an absolute as 
a relative quality. What is plain to one audience may 
be obscure to another. The man and the child, the 
ignorant and the learned, cannot be addressed in the 
same language ; and the perspicuity of composition is to 
be judged by the intelligence of those for whom it is 
designed. Perspicuity has reference to the ease, cer- 
tainty, and precision with which the language yields the 
thought to those for whom it was expressed. It is not 
the nature of subjects, but the power of persons, which 
determines the perspicuity of any given treatment. 

It is evident, that, to a wise man, the capacity of 
those whom he seeks either to instruct, please, or per- 
suade must furnish the guide and law of action. What- 
ever this demands, he will patiently grant as the funda- 
mental condition of success. Some forms of composition, 



186 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

as the oration, have a most immediate and specific ref- 
erence to given individuals, and, therefore, are levelled 
to their easy apprehension ; others, as is frequently the 
case with the essay and the poem, go in search of cer- 
tain readers, and are not expected to furnish the fullest 
entertainment or instruction to any but a limited class. 
Readers of any given book constitute a more select circle 
than those who usually listen to any given address, and 
therefore the writer may presuppose in those for whom 
he writes higher powers than can the orator. The 
poem may rightly demand poetical insight ; and philoso- 
phy, the discipline of a trained mind. It is sufficient 
that composition finds a class to whom, through affinity 
of tastes or powers, it readily imparts its thought. 
The writer, therefore, in aiming at perspicuity, considers 
chiefly whether his own ideas have been lucidly ex- 
pressed, while the orator must inquire whether the 
expression is open to the easy, pleasurable apprehension 
of given persons. The book determines the reader, the 
listener determines the oration. 

The obscurity and difficulty of a subject can hardly 
be regarded as any just reason for the want of per- 
spicuity ; indeed, they rather seem to constitute the 
demand for it. One is not bound to write ; if he must 
write obscurely, and therefore weakly and worthlessly, 
he is rather bound not to write. In proportion to the 



PERSPICUITY. 187 

embarrassments of the topic should the writer move 
cautiously and distinctly through it. 

Perspicuity is that quality of style by which a clear 
thought, without loss, without enlargement, is lodged in 
clear language. It depends primarily on the method 
of the mind's action, and secondarily on the use of lan- 
guage. No formal rules, having chief reference to the 
instrument and methods of expression, can in any high 
degree secure it. It must spring from a strong, well- 
furnished, and well-disciplined mind. Confused thinking 
and confused expression cannot be readily distinguished 
in their results, and the latter will not often occur 
without the former. At this point, as at others, we see 
how deeply true rhetorical excellence is rooted in the 
mind, and how broad and thorough a culture it implies. 
The expression is the counterpart and measure of the 
thinking, and little can be done for the forms of thought 
except through thought itself. Formal directions are 
of slight avail ; the mind must be quickened, and taught 
to do its work more thoroughly. Style, the outgrowth 
of the intellectual life, can only become clear, concise, 
and vigorous, as the intuitive and reflective powers 
themselves possess these characteristics. The strong 
and elastic step is the spontaneous movement of a 
full life. 

He that would think clearly can neither be indolent 



188 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

nor hasty. Indeed, haste is a very common result of 
indolence. The mind will either not investigate its 
opinions, or does it precipitately and carelessly, that it 
may again relapse into the quiet of dogmatism, substi- 
tuting obstinacy for conviction. 

Thinking also proceeds so frequently in the interest 
of some passion, marshalling arguments for a given 
conclusion, shaping reasons so as to reach a specific 
end, that candid inquiry and just apprehension, and 
hence the most perspicuous. expression, are impossible. 
False views, and the worst emotions, may, indeed, -be 
perspicuously expressed ; but they are not likely to be. 
Man usually strives to throw the semblance of plausi- 
bility and virtue over his beliefs and action, and in doing 
this, the thought becomes partial and sophistical. An 
imposing and decorous phraseology is made to disguise 
the opinions which it seems to express. Men will not 
come to the light, lest their deeds be reproved, is the 
explanation of much confused argumentation. The 
vigor of all parts of man's nature is requisite to the 
most successful action of any. 

Right aims and thorough methods are the conditions 
of just thinking, which is the most perspicuous thinking. 
Obscurity arises from that rapid glance of the mind by 
which it seems to behold without fully grasping its 
object. The eye at no time rests protractedly upon a 



PERSPICUITY. 189 

single portion of the field, till it has mapped it in a 
completed survey. The act of expression hurries the 
process of thought ; the seeming progress which is 
made, when a form of words is reached, deceives the 
mind, and leaves it satisfied with the shadowy semblance 
of things. 

In passing from the clear sunlight into a dark cave, 
we see but obscurely, in flickering outline, the objects 
about us. If we commence instantly our description, 
we can scarcely expect that the impression which we 
shall impart will be more accurate. It is necessary 
that the eye should rest where it falls, till angles and 
surfaces, projections and crevices, come out from the 
darkness, and stand rightly grouped before it. Thus he 
who would think clearly must make tarry within the 
light of a reflective mind the subject in hand till it 
stands in clear outline. All, then, that trains the mind 
to severe thinking, and the heart to right feeling, pre- 
pares the way for perspicuous utterance. 

While an honest and disciplined mind is the general 
condition of perspicuity, there are in each eflbrt of com- 
position more immediate and specific conditions. Some 
of these we shall mention : the first is a distinct appre- 
hension of the thing proposed, of the end to be reached. 
This condition is equally important, whatever that end 
may be, whether the communication of thought, the 



190 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. 

imparting of pleasure, or persuasion. The object- is 
Often not early or definitely enough conceived by the 
mind to give form to the composition. The writer is 
said to " write himself clear ; " that is, the exa(;t 
relation of ideas is seen at the close, and not at the 
commencement, of the effort. This may be frequently 
unavoidable ; but it is evident that the mind cannot 
most directly and succinctly present a subject till it has 
defined the topic, and seen its bearings. The more 
specific and individual the object, the more strict will be 
the test furnished every sentence, and the more definite 
the law of arrangement. 

What is termed the throwing out of ideas is an indo- 
lent and relatively a confused process. Concentration, 
definiteness of purpose, — this is that which gives order 
and direction to the mind, and sets it on systematic 
efibrt. Even in poetry, the more single and individual 
the product, the more perfect does it promise to become. 

In this choice of an end there is also involved, as a 
second condition, a clear discernment of the means by 
which it is to be reached. The two must go together. 
It is the end which defines and arranges the means. 
All questions of method are under standingly settled 
only when we have an explicit apprehension of the 
object proposed. It is the want of this which so often 
gives vagueness and generality to discourse, a conflicting 



PERSPICUITY. 191 

and erratic character to the essay. The highest per- 
spicuity can only be reached in connection with severe 
unity. Every part thus complements, sustains, and 
expounds every other, and the mind, undiverted, ap- 
proaches by every movement one step nearer the end. 

Not only must the end and the means by which it is 
to be reached be present to the mind, they must often be 
clearly expressed as well as thoroughly contained in the 
composition. When success depends on the distinctness 
with which the steps of thought are taken, the mind of 
the listener must be aided, that the movement may be 
most rapid, easy, and perfect. It is not sufficient, 
therefore, for the highest perspicuity, that the relations 
and line of connection are in themselves perfect; the 
auditor needs to be forewarned of the object in view, 
and to have his attention directly drawn to the succes- 
sive steps through which it is reached. The general 
relations of the discussion are thus brought to the sur- 
face, and the listener led to direct his full attention to its 
successive stages. Without this general anatomy of the 
theme, considerable reflection is often required to discern 
relations in themselves most severe and logical. 

This formal statement of the subject and its divisions 
is often thought to be mechanical, and to preclude the 
highest artistic products. The skeleton of the oration, 
it is said, should be contained in, rather than thua 



192 PHILOSOPHY OF HHETORIC. 

raised upon, the composition. In .poetry this is uni-* 
formly the case, since the life-like effect is here of 
preeminent moment, and delighted contemplation, rather 
than rapid apprehension, is aimed at. In forms of com- 
position addressed more directly to the intellect, it is, 
however, the ligaments and relations of thought which 
especially invite attention, and there is needed no apol- 
ogy for presenting these in bold relief. In the oration 
much ingenuity may be exercised in announcing the 
subject, and in passing from part to part of the dis- 
course without abruptly suspending the whole movement, 
and inserting those arbitrary notices of change — first, 
secondly, thirdly. Even these, however, are better than 
a transition so carefully covered as not to be distinctly 
and at once observed. Transitions clearly marking the 
progress of thought are a thh'd important condition of 
perspicuity. 

This clearness of a production, taken as a whole, is 
much- more important than the perspicuity of single 
sentences ; since the mind experiences more difficulty 
in grasping and relating the whole than in a careful 
consideration of detached portions ; since the gain is 
slight if parts are understood, while their purpose and 
relations are not seen ; and since, with the general 
object full in view, obscure sentences can either be 
comprehended, or, without much loss, be neglected. 



PERSPICUITY. 193 

Sentences, the mdimentaiy parts of discourse, are — as 
compared with their grouping, first into members, and 
then into a whole — hkely to receive too much attention. 

A chief instrument of perspicuous thought, and yet 
•more of perspicuous expression, is comparison. The 
mind adds the unknown to the known by inquiring into 
ao^reements and differences. Each new fact takes its 
place in the classifications of knowledge by its relations 
to those already present there. The mind is constantly 
explaining to itself the new, is penetrating it with a 
more thorough analysis, by an accurate determination of 
its agreements aod disagreements with the old. Think- 
ing involves, therefore, constant comparison ; and the 
breadth, jjustness, and clearness with which this is done 
measure the power of the mind. Hasty, stiperficial 
resemblances are a constant source of error ; radical, 
though often remote, agreements, the foundations of 
truth. The thoughtful mind is in every step, therefore, 
trained to comparison, and the precision with which this 
is instituted marks the perspicuity of its movement. 

Comparison, in its two forms of resemblance and an- 
tithesis, being so fundamental a step in investigation and 
comprehension , must also play an important part in pres- 
entation. Though essentially the same principles underlie 
inquiry and instruction, — the getting and the imparting 
of knowledge, — the latter receives som-e modifications 
1/ M 



194 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. 

from the different relations which the mind of the reader 
or listener may sustain to the subject. It is not now so 
much the radical comparisons of philosophy, Kable to be 
equally obscure in both their branches, that are sought, 
as those more general agreements, which, finding one 
member already lodged in the popular apprehension, 
pass thence to the other and more obscure member. 
The mind is no longer busy with its own processes, 
inquiring into inherent and intimate relations, but is 
striving within the compass of general knowledge to find 
a vantage point from which to spring an arch over into 
the more obscure domain of truth, to discover something 
of which it may say, " Look ye here ; see this ; it is like 
that of which I am speaking." A certain ap^tnesa and 
interest in the agreements of things remote are now 
sought, rather than the thorough resemblance of things 
closely allied. 

The comparison of discourse is always under this lim- 
itation, that it must find its starting point among, things 
well known. With this restriction, the more severe and 
philosophic it may be, the more correct and perspicuous 
is it. Perspicuity is reached by illustrative comparisons, 
and these, in their just forms, involve inherent agree- 
ments. By an error at this point, that which is seem- 
ingly perspicuous is really most fallacious and obscure. 
Comparisons which hold to the senses, but not to the 



PERSPICUITY. 195 

mind, which involve transient agreements with radical 
differences, offer subtle means of deception. Just in 
proportion as the illustrative comparison slips from phi- 
losophy into fancy, does it become dangerous and ob- 
scure. Its seeming light adds to the darkness. Like a 
flickering candle in the night, it makes the gloom only 
the more impenetrable. 

The comparison may also be used for vivacity , — for 
the beauty of its glowing imagery. Here there is more 
license in the resemblance, since both branches of the 
comparison are now relatively well understood, and the 
aim is rather to delight by the corresponding lustre of 
remote things than to instruct by the agreement of allied 
things. 

The use of comparison is very much a habit of thought. 
The mind observes and treasures up resemblances ; it 
relates and unites diverse things, and thus can reach 
a given end from many different starting points. It 
has an eye for harmonies, and marks them in the prog- 
ress of physical and spiritual forces. So intimate is 
the connection of style with thought, that the method 
of thinking must, in a large degree, be the method of 
presentation, and the relations of the expression be im- 
aged by the interior relations of the ideas. Style is 
chiefly to be affected through that discipline which con- 
trols the mind. The habits of observation and investiga- 



196 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

tion give the imagery of discourse. The mind stored 
with comparisons by its own methods of inquiry, can 
hardly fail to use them. 

The comparison is a formal figure, pointing out dis- 
tinctly, and often at length, the agreement or contrast 
between two things. This fits it for clear, unimpas- 
sioned presentation, for quiet, yet earnest, explanation. 
There is in it activity and warmth of thought rather than 
emotion. The antithesis may present its subject in 
strong, brilhant outline ; but it is throughout a most 
perspicuous, intellectual process, and requires the com- 
posure of reason to preserve its balance and make it a 
presentation, not a distortion, of the subject. Of the 
two forms, antithesis is the more striking. Marked 
contrasts are less frequently observed, and more affect 
the mind, than marked agreements. Our judgments are 
almost wholly relative, and we form our highest estimate 
of any quality by contrasting it with its* opposite. 

We now come to those conditions of perspicuity which 
are more strictly external. Chief among these are the 
choice of words, the number of words, and their arrange- 
ment. These are the divisions given by Campbell under 
vivacity^ for which we here find place. The fact is, 
that the qualities of good style are so allied, that what 
secures one helps to secure all, and the same points dis- 
cussed in somewhat different relations are applicable to 



PEESPICUITY. 197 

all. Choice of words is important in securing eacli 
excellency of style. 

The writer is regulated in his choice of words princi- 
pally by the subject discussed ; the speaker, by the per- 
sons addressed. Science has found necessary for pre- 
cision many new words. These have a limited and 
technical meaning. The careful philosophical essay 
must often employ these for the precise and accurate 
expression of its meaning. These qualities give law to 
its language, and though, at first, there may seem to be 
thrown a heavier burden on the reader, he has no right 
to complain of what is necessary to a more just under- 
standing of the subject. Ease must give way to accu- 
racy, and to combine the two in the highest degree is 
the excellency of the writer. While composition on its 
philosophical side is governed by precision, on its popular 
side it is controlled by ease of apprehension. The for- 
mula for the one is. Be precise, and thereby be under- 
stood ; for the other. Be understood, and therewith seek 
precision. Technical phraseology may be in the essay, 
when rightly employed, most perspicuous ; perspicuous 
discourse must be most simple in the vv^ords used. 

Simple words, in the present meaning, are those read- 
ily understood by the mass of men. They are the only 
appropriate, as they are the only perspicuous, words in 
discourse. Simplicity may have, however, a broader 



198 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

meaning, — the use of those words which most readily, 
most directly, convey the meaning to the minds ad- 
dressed, — and thus belong to all perspicuous compo- 
sition. Specific as opposed to abstract, and familiar 
as opposed to unusual words, render the idea most 
accessible to all minds. It is not so frequently the dif- 
ficulty or depth of the thought that removes it from the 
popular apprehension, as the strangeness of the lan- 
guage in which it is expressed. Many radical princi- 
ples may be stated and elucidated, many weighty truths 
discussed and urged, if the language and illustrations 
employed are level to the audience. There is usually 
shrewdness enough to catch ideas, when these are not 
disguised and estranged by unfamiliar phraseology. 

The process of education may, in this respect, unfit 
the speaker for the task afterward laid upon him. He 
acquires the vocabulary of schools and books rather 
than of popular life, and gives to every discussion a 
technical turn, which removes it from the language and 
feelings of the people. Every principle of practical 
interest, as every radical principle is, can be discussed 
and pressed as a powerfid motive, provided that dis- 
course unfolds it on its practical side, in its familiar 
bearings, and not speculatively as the member of a 
system. 

The speaker must start with the people, enlarge, 



PERSPICUITY. 199 

correct, and apply their views. He must, therefore, be 
familiar with their words, their thoughts, the imagery 
of their life and minds. To bring forth scholarly 
thoughts in their original speculative forms, is to invite 
a popular audience to an entertainment in which they 
can have little part or interest ; the crane feasts the fox 
in his own long-necked dish. 

Some men discover this, and fall into an opposite 
and worse fault. Drollery, extravagance, stories, are 
made to furnish amusement, and the lightest possible 
dash of substantial truth is deemed sufficient for popular 
effect. The discourse is perspicuous, but comparatively 
worthless. Rarely, very rarely, need one lay aside a 
good thought as too difficult of apprehension. Find its 
practical bearings, its familiar applications, and through 
these it can be approached with great certainty and 
interest. Discourse, to be thoroughly perspicuous, must 
be communicated in the speech of common life, not in 
those abstract and general terms which serve the pur- 
poses of reflection. 

In no department of oratory is this more manifest 
than in the pulpit. A certain unreality and estrange- 
ment from daily experience belong to spiritual ideas. 
Add to this a theological turn of expression, a set use 
of peculiar words ever liable to lapse into cant, the 
solemnity of the Sabbath and the church, and though the 



200 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORKK' 

sermon may seem to be perspicuous, to be perfectly 
understood, the most weighty truths have in fact fallen 
on the mind with little or no influence. We may 
account for this in various ways, but we think it 
largely due to a want of real perspicuity. We know 
that certain forms of speech, in themselves' clear and 
weighty, can be repeated till they convey httle or no 
idea. Keclothe the thoughts in a more immediate and 
pressing form, and they resume their power. Eeligious 
truth is often not perspicuously urged, because not urged 
under those intimate and searching and changing rela- 
tions which it really sustains to daily life. When any 
great department makes the impression of a supersensual 
and speculative region, it is not understood. One can- 
not be perspicuous without a thoroughly penetrating view 
of the radical, living connections of truth. Theoretical 
men may philosophize, but the orator must know and 
feel truth on its practical side as well. It is not the 
statics so much as the dynamics of life that he is to 
expound and control. Things are plaia enough, and 
we must give to our thoughts the perspicuity of facts, 
and then they vdll become effective. This sort of 
clearness is the foundation of energy. 

In the choice of words, it is evident that purity 
will greatly aid perspicuity. The original Anglo-Saxon 
element of our language has been chiefly retained by 



PERSPICUITY. 201 

the people, and is now its clearest, strongest portion. 
Here, again, education may without care weaken our 
vocabulary, substituting classical derivatives for our 
native speech. 

A second verbal point on which perspicuity depends 
is the number of words. A cumbersome, involved 
expression, though containing the idea, is less clear than 
one more concise. The mind is embarrassed by words 
which have no essential office. The more divested the 
sentence is of superfluities, the more separately and 
singly does the thought stand forth. When the point 
of comprehension, of fair and succinct statement, has 
been reached, all beyond wearies and confuses the 
mind. In the search for something more, it loses sight, 
in part,' of what it had. Amplification is, indeed, a 
most essential power in oratory, but this is neither cum- 
bersome nor repetitious. Copious, no less than concise, 
expression should keep the words directly in the line of 
thought; we incline to the one or the other according 
to the rapidity of movement of which the listener is 
capable. We can neither fall behind nor outstrip him 
without weakening attention. Slowness is not simply 
opposed to energy, — it is also unfavorable to appre- 
hension. 

The last means of perspicuity is arrangement. This 
expresses the grammatical connections of the sentence, 
9* 



202 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

and must, therefore, conform closely to them. Punctu- 
ation is a further means of expressing these relations, 
but is so liable to error and change, that it ought to be 
as little as possible relied on. It is designed rather to 
give quickness of apprehension to the reader, than 
intelligibility to the writer. So far as the grammar 
of a sentence is concerned, its clearness depends chiefly 
on the simplicity of the construction, the precision of 
the arrangement, and the reference of pronouns. As 
* regards perspicuity, the length of a sentence is not 
of as much moment as the character of its construction. 
It is the complex dependences, the involved relations, 
the assertion sliding on from point to point, that em- 
barrass the mind, tripping it in the meshes of grammar. 
Retain the same simple form of aflSrmation, and the 
sentence may be long, yet clear. It is the steady, easy 
hand with which its grammar is managed which carries 
perspicuity through a sentence. 

To mark the dependence of adjectives, adverbs, and' 
prepositional clauses, position is relied on. The last 
two have more license of arrangement than the first, 
and are, therefore, more open to obscurity. There are 
frequently opportunities for a double reference. It is 
in these cases especially that the dependence must be 
strictly marked. As in the rabble of modern speech, 
the noun and v^rb no longer clothe their dependants in 



PERSPICUITY. 203 

the livery of inflection, each must gather to itself its 
retinue in close attendance. 

The relative pronoun, having little to mark the con- 
nection with its antecedent, is confined in its reference 
to the sentence to v^^hich it belongs, and is further 
restricted in position. If the antecedent is a prominent 
noun, it may sufficiently attach the pronoun, though 
other nouns intervene ; if not, the relative should imme- 
diately follow. The personal pronoun, though more 
closely connected with its antecedent by gender, num- 
ber, and person, is also liable to ambiguous reference, 
and the more so as the rano^e of its reference is enlarcred 
to preceding sentences. We say sentences : it cannot, 
however, revert far without obscurity, unless the con- 
nection is marked and sustained by the frequent inter- 
vening use of the pronoun. Narrative may maintain 
the reference when continuous for some time. When 
any intervening matter has suspended it, the noun 
should again be introduced. The perspicuity and dig- 
nity of narrative are better secured by a frequent use 
of the noun. The demonstrative this is often used 
with obscure reference, chiefly because it refers, not to a 
person or thing, but to some sentiment or principle. 
This principle has frequently not received a distinct 
statement, but only been hinted at, or involved in what 
has been said. The mind, therefore, expounds the 



204 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

comprehensive pronoun with uncertainty. It is usually 
better distinctly to enunciate the doctrine or notion, 
before this sort of reference is admitted. 

Perspicuity is a relative quality. It is judged by the 
end in view. It may, therefore, be found in excess. 
To push lucid explanation beyond what is requisite for 
apprehension is wearisome. This power of comprehen- 
sion known to exist, or rightly presumed to exist, varies 
with every form of composition. The speaker is most 
strongly and definitely bound by a fact, — a given 
degree of intelligence which he must know and regard. 
With those who are capable of profiting by it, a sug- 
gestive rather than an exhaustive style is preferable, as 
it gives a more independent, fresh, and profitable move- 
ment to the mind of the listener. There is more pleas- 
ure in the light and shade of morning than in the even 
glow of noonday. 

Memory also often demands a compact statement, 
though it may require much afterthought fully to 
understand it. Thus knowledge is made portable in 
aphorisms and proverbs, and the speaker gathers up his 
discussion in a few terse sentences, which first require 
the whole discourse for their explanation, and afterward 
retain it. Subjects, divisions, and compends may be 
perspicuous only in their connections, being designed to 



PERSPICUITY. 205 

fasten attention and aid memory, — to contain, rather 
than to expound, the theme. 

It has also been observed that where persuasion is 
aimed at, the very end in view will not always suffer 
the highest perspicuity. An absurd yet common opinion 
or custom is to be exposed : if unsparing argument and 
ridicule are employed, pride is» aroused, and obstinacy 
excited. Men are ashamed to accept conclusions which 
have in them so much censure and contempt for their 
past conduct ; they are unwilling to believe that they 
and* so many have been grossly mistaken, and resist to 
the utmost the unpleasant conviction. They try to do by 
obstinacy what they cannot do by argument. We are 
all slow to make an unconditional surrender. If a 
retreat is left open to vanity, we silently draw off our 
forces without acknowledging even to ourselves a defeat. 
It is often easier to add a second mistake than to cancel 
the first by a frank concession. When the aim is to 
win those addressed, they are not so much to be driven 
as persuaded. The prejudices and passions are not to 
be at once aroused by undisguised attack, but princi- 
ples are to be established, and truths insinuated, that 
shall lead the mind by its own action to the right con- 
clusion, and make the result seem to be one of its own 
acceptance. Unpitying argument, censure, and rebuke 
can only be used as a last resort toward those who are 



206 PHILOSOPHY OP EHETORIC. 

to be aroused and forced to action, or against open 
and determined enemies, not so much for their sake as a 
means of influence with third persons. The preacher 
especially needs to know what kind of perspicuity is 
persuasive, what effective for the end proposed. 



ELEGANCE. 207 



CHAPTEE m. 

ELEGANCE. 

Elegance is more frequently employed to express 
a polished and refined style than a simple and natural 
one ; to denote acquired, than native graces. It is 
here used to cover all in composition that gives pleasure 
to taste, both in the matter brought forward and in its 
method of presentation, or, more accurately, in the 
matter as presented. The object of taste is beauty in 
its fuller and more restricted forms, in itself and in 
its elements. That composition may give pleasure to 
taste, there must be beauty in the conception, and skill 
and ease in the execution; matter and manner must 
combine to make the product elegant. The more excel- 
lent either alone may be, the more conscious are we of 
any discord between them. Homely matter in homely 
phrase may possess much power ; shift the on^ without 
the other, impart refinement to the words merely, and 
the whole becomes ridiculous. In treating of elegance, 
we have, therefore, as much to speak of its basis in the 



208 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

mind's action, as of those methods which native grace 
is sure to adopt. 

Elegance rests chiefly on richness and delicacy of 
feeling. It has but little connection with simply reason- 
ing processes. Its intellectual side is intuitive — a 
direct, immediate perception of qualities interpreted by 
the emotions which they arouse. One might as well 
expect to imderstand the power of music without feeling 
it, as to perceive beauty without the love of it. The 
more diversified and sensitive one's emotional nature, 
the more rapid and certain will be his judgment in ques- 
tions which ultimately make their appeal to feeling. 
Moral problems are often interpreted and solved by 
generous, just feeling, quite as quickly and surely as 
by unimpassioned speculation. 

Elegance depends principally on the management of 
emotional elements ; it is, therefore, an essential excel- 
lence in poetry. Here nothing can take its place, since 
to fail in giving pleasure, to fall short of the harmony 
of concurrent feehng, of inwrapping the heart in 
elevated sentiment, is to forfeit the very end for which 
poetry is instituted. In the philosophical essay, ele- 
gance takes a wholly secondary position. In the 
anatomical room, we forget the beauty of the living 
structure. Elegance is now little more than the most 
straightforward statement of simple facts — is but the 



ELEGANCE. 209 

lustre of perspicuity. In the narrative essay, as history, 
especially when the discussion of causes is forgotten, 
and the sequence of facts followed, the movement is 
that of free living forces, and the beauty and grace of 
life gather about the theme. Here lies an important 
distinction between history and the novel. In the one 
narrative, the facts are preeminent ; but that they may 
be facts, they must be the entire, the living facts, 
clothed as far as possible with the emotion of the hour. 
In the other, the feelings are uppermost, and the flexi- 
ble narrative goes and comes so as best to reveal these, 
the real, the vital forces of life. The truth of princi- 
ples belongs to the good novel ; the truth of facts and 
principles, to history. 

In oratory, elegance is not only secondary to energy, 
but taste, when it is in the least degree fastidious, 
when it is nervous, may decidedly interfere with success. 
Elegance partakes too much of form, and too little of 
substance, has reference too much to an ideal and too 
little to a practical end, to be a controlling quality in 
oratory. When men are content to be elegant, and not 
succeed, rather than be a little less elegant, and succeed, 
taste merely weakens and emasculates speech. Elegance 
is a method, a manner, and can never be opposed to an 
end. Reach the end, and do it with as much taste as 
may be. A querulous and pedantic, or a fondling 

N 



210 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

criticism, that trims and soothes everything, is of little 
use, and gives its possessor much superfluous trouble. 
It ought not to be said, that there is any inherent con- 
flict between elegance and energy. They frequently 
sustain each other. The apparent disagreement between 
them arises often from mistaking the end of oratory, and 
striving to give pleasure rather than to secure impression, 
and from the frequent want of cultivation in those 
addressed. 

In the first case, beauty being aimed at, elegance 
comes to be the ruling quality of style, which it never 
properly can be in oratory. As true elegance, nay, 
truer, might have been found by imparting to the address 
a more determined stylet pushing forward to its end. 
Weakness is not necessary to elegance, though elegance, 
sought for itself, often leads to it. There is a more 
sublime and stirring beauty in action than in rest. This 
enervating taste is corrected by imparting a more ex- 
ternal and practical end. The tasks which fall to work- 
ing men are in all departments mor*e or less homely. 
Dainty men are usually indolent fops. 

In the second case, the orator finds in the audience a 
blunt, undisciplined taste. He cannot throw his pearls 
before swine. As a wise man, he draws imagery, 
illustration, and appeal from familiar fields, and with less 
beauty, but more energy, presses forward. That criticism 



ELEGANCE. 211 

is maudlin, which, in the pulpit or on the platform, cuts 
off the speaker from the most immediate and full suc- 
cess. Immediate and permanent success sets law to the 
effort, and no gains of taste merely can atone for its 
want. It rarely calls, however, for a violation of taste ; 
it chiefly leads to a partial oversight. It should also be 
borne in mind, that a breach of taste may excite atten- 
tion and win a rude applause, and yet do mischief. In 
proportion as intelligence and cultivation gain ground, 
elegance and energy concur in their effects, and the 
most energetic becomes the most elegant form of 
action. 

Minds differ much from each other in the delicacy 
of their apprehensions and quickness of their suscep- 
tibilities. Some lie sluggish and heavy under all the 
subtler influences and lighter movements by which 
grace and beauty are expressed ; while others, as if 
endowed with a new, more universal and perfect sense, 
like a brilliant flower, cull from the common light all 
its rarest tints. This delicate perception is an indis- 
pensable requisite for aU composition in any high 
degree elegant, and, bestowed in its rudiments by 
nature, is, like every other power, largely dependent 
on cultivation. 

Exercise is ever the chief means of discipline ; and 
for this, in the department of taste, the opportunities 



312 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

are abundant. The careful observation called for in 
connection with the natural sciences is one of the best 
methods of securing that intimacy with, and interest 
in, Nature, which render us open to her lessons of 
beauty. The materials of taste here exist in the greatest 
profusion and abundance ; in individual objects and in 
the grouping of objects ; in obscure and in palpable 
forms ; in parts and in perfected wholes ; in suggestion 
and realization ; in sound, movement, color, and form; 
and in all these gathered into one compound and lavish 
utterance. The great storehouse of illustration, com- 
parison, metaphor, is Nature ; and by a familiarity with 
her concealed and open processes we shall find the more 
obscure workings of thought, the darker flow of abstract 
things, lighted up by a thousand resemblances. This 
study of the external world will avail little, unless we 
bring to it a mind that has a productive habit, and that, 
too, in the Hne of letters. Food nourishes the active, 
growing part, whatever that may be, and he who uses 
what he gets also acquires the power to get readily what 
he uses. The same objects are looked upon with very 
diverse reference, and therefore diverse efifect. The 
literary mind finds the play of thought in external 
objects, and through them giTes play to thought. 
What seems to be an effect is often most eflScient 
among the cooperative causes. The exercise of an 



ELEGANCE. 213 

activity is the reason rather than the result of its nour- 
isliment. 

As composition deals more with men than things, and 
deals with them under a more stringent law of propriety, 
elegance especially demands a knowledge of men, — of 
their passions and impulses. If we would present char- 
acter in its many varieties, — -if we would approach it 
through its many avenues, — if we would twist into the 
cord by which we bind men to our purposes those 
golden threads which a knowledg^ of occasions and 
persons can alone supply, — we must move among men, 
and know them. We must learn to apprehend, without 
sharing, that which is base and selfish; and sharing, to 
feel the influence of every generous, life-giving impulse. 
Thus we escape those straitened methods aijd chronic 
opinions which our own bias or pecuKar training may 
have imparted. The ease and grace of management 
which a knowledge of men imparts are proverbial. 
There is, however, this most important limitation — the 
sincerity and freedom of individual- action must not 
thereby be lost. Here, again, we come to the same 
principle ; we get to wse, and the earnestness of using 
preserves us from the dangers of getting. Without 
this a cold and courtly polish may cast a chilling ele- 
gance over our decayed life. No intercourse is so 
healthy as that with men, men of all sorts, for an 



214 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

earnest spirit ; none so dangerous for a vacant one. 
The controlling power of every truly elegant product 
is the individual life. This will often, by its own 
spontaneous strength, secure elegance against every 
difficulty. 

A last means of discipline which we mention, is 
familiarity with the best literature. Excellence in each 
department is so far peculiar, that it must be chiefly 
acquired by study within its own field. Every good 
workman must learn his own trade ; and not less must 
every inspired poet and orator catch his inspiration from 
poetry and oratory. The cliief power of every virtue 
is a sort of induction by which it begets a like or prox- 
imate state in every one who beholds it. Contact with 
that which is excellent, nearness to that* which has 
power, intimacy with that which has grace, give play 
to this silent force of virtue by which it scatters seeds 
and shoots in all adjacent soil. The lower grace of 
manners springs up insensibly as we share the society 
of those possessing it ; so the higher grace, which be- 
speaks a mind easily moving through the whole range 
of its thought. Familiarity with feeble novelists will 
add this to its many other injuries, that the mind, habit- 
uated to a false or languid style, will lose sight of true 
excellence, and content itself with that which long com- 
panionship has made agreeable. He who is intimate 



ELEGANCE. 215 

with the best productions of the human mind, while 
meeting with the largest return in thought, also finds 
that that preeminence of method which has long been 
his admiration has quickened and prospered his own 
exertions. In all this discipline there is the most con- 
stant action and reaction between the mind and the 
objects before it. It chooses them in part from what 
it itself is, and becomes more and more like the objects 
it has chosen. Between the active mind and its food 
there is an adaptation, a play of appetite and digestive 
use, which prevent it from becoming either a gross gor- 
mandizer or a dyspeptic. The elixir of health, and 
therefore of beauty, is that principle which sets our 
power, our knowledge, "in act and use." 

The intrinsic beauty of the theme itself is not in any 
great degree a subject of choice, except in poetry. In 
most forms of composition, elegance must show itself 
more in the method than in the matter of discourse. 
We come, then, to those characteristics in composition 
which mark it as elegant. Beauty shows itself in the 
fitness and perfection of relations,* since these are insti- 
tuted by the artist, and reveal his power. 

The first of these relations is that between the style 
and the subject. Each theme has its own characteristics, 
and seeks for a sympathy of manner in the expression. 
That treatment is most elegant which most thoroughly 



216 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

individualizes the topic, brings it forth under its own 
specific forms, features, and coloring. A method essen- 
tially the same in all departments reveals at once the 
inflexible barren mood of the mind. For all its thoughts 
it has one obdurate mould, and sends each new product 
forth with the old mill mark upon it. The freshness 
and variety of nature are thus lost. There is no nice 
discernment of character, no careful reflection of tran- 
sient feeling. Every subject is weighed in the same 
rude scale-pan, and gets the taint of the market. The 
illimitable scope of nature is thus lost : the grave, the 
sublime, the solemn; the earnest, the enthusiastic, the 
inspired; the pleasant, the gay, the merry, — all march 
to the same step. With violent inversion, according to 
the mood of the man, low comedy takes the place of 
sober discussion, or pompous, and emphatic assertion, 
of simple statement. 

This harmony between the inherent quality of the 
topic and the style can only be reached when the mind 
stands in close connection and sympathy with the sub- 
ject. The language will thus flow forth, colored and 
impregnated with the peculiar properties of the theme. 
This congruity will show itself, not merely in the gen- 
eral method employed, but especially in illustration and 
ornament. A style indiscriminately ornate reveals a 
crude or vulgar taste. Economy of ornament, and its 



ELEGANCE. 217 

Strict subservience to the end aimed at, discover the 
masterly and chaste quality of the mind. The luxuri- 
ance of youth is not, indeed, to be rejected, as it gives 
scope to the sober, pruning hand of age, and helps to 
save style from those bald forms into which the barren 
fancy sinks. Imagery — which is the growth of earnest 
emotion, — which is the vitality of the heart filling with 
fiowers each vacant spot — may indeed be abundant, and, 
in its spontaneous life, most beautiful. This is quite 
difierent from that overwrought style which deals in per- 
petual hyperbole, and sees none of the poor people and 
poor Facts which lie in its way. The fare of the mind, 
like that of the body, must be plain, to be wholesome. 
The mind should truly value the subject, not feel that its 
task is to make, by adroit rhetoric, something out of it. 

In this relaition of the theme and style may also be 
included harmony and rhythm of sound. The more 
emotiontil the theme, the more does it seek this, till, in 
the gems of poetry, it almost reaches the melody of 
music. In discourse it becomes a wholly secondary and 
undefined element, little more than what has already 
been spoken of as harmony of style. Words as sounds 
merely somewhat govern each other ; so inferior a claim, 
however, cannot be greatly heeded in the earnest move- 
ment of discoui'se. 

A second relation is that between the parts of compo- 
iO 



2x8 PHILOSOPHY OP EHETORIC. 

sition to each other, and to the whole. A right relation 
here is in some respects the most rare and costly beauty 
of style. To manage the theme as a whole requires 
reflection, and is more requisite to success than the skil- 
ful handling of every part. The ground plan of the 
building goes far to determine the possibilities of the 
structure. It is easier to elaborate and ornament the 
parts than to think long on the design ; but not till the 
outline is reached does the law of the building appear ; 
afterward all is natural and inevitable. Fragments are 
more readily produced than wholes. The steadiness 
with which the mind rests upon and works out th^ main 
idea marks its power. Here there is not much differ- 
ence between the highest poetry and oratory. The epic 
and dramatic poet must remember the plot, must in each 
scene heighten and hasten the catastrophe, or the one- 
ness of the work is lost. In the oration, the introduc- 
tion cannot linger, the argument cannot pause, 'nor the 
passion cool : all must work together in the result, — all 
be proportional parts of a well-proportioned whole. 

This fact of proportion, however, does not define, by 
any invariable law, either the number or the length of 
the parts. These points are settled by the peculiarities 
of each case. Each product has its own proportions, 
but proportion it must have. Excess and deficiency are 
equally fatal to symmetry. That no necessary part may 



ELEGANCE. 219 

be wanting, and lione over-treated, the mind must dwell 
patiently on the end and the means before it. An undi- 
vided impulse must pervade the entire effort. The treat- 
ment once undertaken must be completed. A logical 
method, promising severe investigation, cannot drop 
away into a popular strain and ready assumption. The 
parts must be proportionate, continuous, and concur- 
rent ; that is, harmoniously developed toward a single 
end. The production thus acquires the elegance of a 
living whole. In unfolding the subject, the grace of 
transitions becomes a point of moment. We before saw 
that they should be clear ; they should also reveal the 
natural connection of the parts. We thus see that ele- 
gance is not extrinsic, but intrinsic ; not superinduced, 
but educed ; not local, gathered here and there into fas- 
cicles of figures and knots of imagery, but pervasive and 
inclusive. It is the general merit that at once stimulates 
and disguises the merits of the parts. 

Another set of relations is found between the dis- 
course and the persons and circumstances connected 
with it. We shall have occasion, in connection with 
" Energy," to speak of the adaptation of the motives of 
discourse to those addressed. The adaptation now 
spoken of is of a more delicate character. It is not 
simply that the line of thought is perspicuous and per- 
tinent, level to the intellects and feelings of the audience, 



220 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORICr 

but that it also indicates familiarity with the transient 
feelings and passing circumstances of the persons and oc- 
casion. It is the skilful handling of little thiugs which 
shows refined perception, takes from the treatment its 
cold, rugged character, and makes way for it in the 
afiections. The more keenly and delicately alive the 
heart of the speaker is to the exigencies and peculiar- 
ities .of the case, the more does discourse depart from 
generalities, and become the fit and elegant outgrowth 
of the time and place. It is this ease and ductility of 
method by which it winds in and out of every opportu- 
nity, gathers up all influences and impressions by the 
way, that make it pleasing as well as powerful, and 
doubly powerful because it is pleasing. The speaker is 
frequently too careless about the nice adjustments of 
thought. Content with facts and principles that demand 
assent, he fails to make way for them, he puts them 
bluntly. He forgets that conviction, cheerfiil assent, are 
the result of a complex and growing process ; that atten- 
tion must be aroused by this method and by that ; the 
heart opened and softened on this side and on that, and 
home arguments not be urged till the mind is ready 
for them. It is this delicate insinuation, this patient 
and affectionate approach, that make composition apt 
and elegant. 

Under this relation of persons there is a second 



ELEGANCE. 221 

adaptation of discourse to the person whose it is. Here 
is naturahiess, the noble virtue of simplicity, which 
prompts to a genuine, frank, earnest expression of our 
own convictions. This excellence of style rests chiefly 
on sincerity, the striving after an internal rather than 
an external end ; or, rather, an aiming to secure an 
external effect by a hearty rendering of an internal 
impression. Personal conviction and interest precede 
and govern expression ; the lips speak what the mind 
knows and feels. Everything being honest in the 
mind's movement, its grasp and government of the 
topic are honestly rendered, and whatever else the 
treatment wants, we feel that it is genuine. 

This penetration of action by the character of the 
agent is far from being disagreeable, especially when 
it arises unconsciously and inevitably from the straight- 
forward way in which thought has sprung up. This 
grace comes unconsciously^ into style, if it comes at all, 
and, like many other qualities, is only to be secured by 
that radical culture which modifies and makes the man. 
There is no more comprehensive and just direction for 
reaching true elegance than to be frank and earnest, 
than to have and express a genuine life. It is not 
primarily a thing of polish, of courtly phrase, found 
oftenest with vanity and pride. The face that is truly 



7 



222 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

fine is painted from within ; the style that is truly ele- 
gant is formed and animated from within. 

It is life that works best and most beautifully in the 
world ; it has merit in its homely as well as in its per- 
fected forms. An aifected and an imitative style are 
directly opposed to this excellence. 



ENERGY. 223 



CHAPTEE lY. 

ENERGY. 

Energy, the third quality of style, expresses the 
force and vigor of composition, — the power with which 
it reaches its. end. It is a leading quality of discourse, 
since this aims at an immediate and thorough effect. It 
springs chiefly from the will and desires, and is meas- 
ured by their strength. The desires so direct and seal 
the will, that the tenacity of the latter must be deter- 
mined by the firmness of the former. We speak of the 
desires : this language ought not, however, to imply any 
inherent distinction in them. They differ from each 
other in the objects which excite them, rather than in 
the feeling excited. From the very constitution of the 
mind, it cannot be indifferent toward its own good, its 
own enjoyment. It belongs to the very nature of hap- 
piness to impart desire, and this desire logically extends 
itself to all objects and actions which are found to be the 
conditions of pleasure. 

We would not say that the desire comes first, and 
that the enjoyment arises from its gratification, but that 



224 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

certain appetites and powers furnish us pleasure, and 
that this pleasure inspires desire for the objects with 
which it is connected. The enjoyments of the mind, like 
those of the body, arise independently of the desires, 
and enkindle them. But desire, though exclusively 
directed toward things capable of affording some inde- 
pendent pleasure, is not always proportioned to the 
value thus attaching to them. It may, as in avarice, 
acquire a» constitutional hold on the mind, aside from 
any good to be realized in possession. 

As the motive power of life is furnished by the appe- 
tites, passions, and affections, the energy with which the 
mind is driven in any direction must depend on their 
vigor. The will goes forth to determine and execute 
what these propose and prompt ; the firmness of desires, 
however, depends very much on their character as well 
as on their original strength. The appetites and pas- 
sions are more fluctuating than the affections, since they 
have a greater variety of objects, and are easily cloyed. 
The seeker of pleasure changes his specific purposes, 
since the relations in which objects stand to his gratifica- 
tion are constantly changing. Certain objects, which 
are the constant means of a wide circle of enjoyment, — 
indeed, may enhance all pleasure, — are especially capa- 
ble, by their pervasive hold on desire, of calling forth 
exertion. Thus the desires for wealth and for power are 



ENERGY. 225 

peculiarly exacting. Other desires, by the increasing and 
noble character of the good conferred, become more and 
more permanent. Of this kind are those for knowledge 
and virtue. The stability of the desires, therefore, will 
depend much on the character of the thing pursued. 
The firmness secured by virtue has often been evinced, 
when the choice has been forced on the mind between 
that and everything else — between that and life. 
The martyr has found it a pleasure to cling to his 
integrity. 

The will also, like every other power, is strengthened 
by use, and weakened by inaction and defeat. The 
habits and training of the man will go far to determine 
his present powxr of purpose. The uncurbed and 
desultory will is obstinate rather than strong. It works 
with fitful and irregular energy, but does not know how 
to choose a path, and rein every power into it. It is 
thus that obedience becomes the school of command. 
The just will of another accepted lends regularity and 
government to the mind, till the purposes of the in- 
dividual, becoming steady and restrained, are able to 
accept the authority made ready to the hand. The 
unsteady impulses of the feelings must find a balance- 
wheel somewhere, must be subjected to the discreet and 
powerful influence of some ruling desire, before the 
mind can respond with steady energy to the demands 
10* O 



228 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

made upon it. The mind must come under dominion, 
government, before it can be an effective instrument for 
obtaining government. Energy is the pressure of 
disciplined impulses. 

Though energy in action and energy m speech are 
essentially the same, in the mental constitution and 
training v^hich they imply, they are not so in the 
desires which nourish them. The pursuit of wealth and 
of power bears no comparison with that of virtue in the 
aid which they render discourse. A man may work 
most vigorously within the line of his own interests, 
but the motives which govern him are so far selfish and 
limited. They can, therefore, rarely be urged upon 
others, and must often be hidden from them. Selfish 
aims less frequently than benevolent ones seek the aid 
of discourse, and furnish much less of its material. 
The speaker who pursues private ends must either 
appeal to selfish impulses which make a poor appear- 
ance, and are more or less in conflict and self-destruc- 
tive, or he must go out of the range of his own desires 
in finding the means of persuasion, and thus lose much 
of the* zeal and energy with which the topic ought to be 
urged ; or he must disguise and misrepresent the motives 
of action, and involve himself in all the tortuous, per- 
plexed paths of evil. Those desires, therefore, which 
are fitted to infuse life into oratory, to inspire and 



ENERGY. 227 

impassion poetry even, must have breadth, philan- 
thropy, and vu'tue in them, or they cannot address 
common mterests, or enkindle common feelings. The 
great ideas of justice, the public weal, liberty, and 
virtue must fully penetrate the mind, arouse the heart, 
and furnish the desires those objects fitted to call forth 
and nourish speech. According to the intensity of the 
desire with which common ends, the interests of public 
and private well-being, are pursued, will be the energy 
of discourse. Virtue must rely chiefly on persuasion, 
and has ever at hand the means, and also the motives to 
employ it. That training which deepens and strengthens 
virtuous desire, and brings the will under its steady 
government, gives to the man, in its most reliable form, 
all the working power of his nature, impresses all his 
words with his own life, his own energy. 

The definiteness of the immediate end chosen also 
adds to strength. A clear perception of the connection 
and order of means by which a distant object is to be 
reached is most requisite to settled, decisive effort. 
While feeling impels, it cannot take the place of clear, 
explicit guidance. On the distinctness with which the 
immediate effect is conceived, and its relations to an 
ultimate good, will depend the directness and emciency 
of the means employed. Severe and logical disci- 
pline of the faculties gives precision, and thus energy, 



228 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

to their action. It is here pulpit oratory often fails. 
The general, generic end of virtue is not clearly enough 
resolved into the specific objects which it includes, 
which are means to it. The aim is not definite 
enough to arouse and concentrate the mind. The 
argument and the application are general, and fail of 
the pungency of more pointed discourse. The specific 
end should share the elevation of the general aim, 
and the general aim be sought with the directness of a 
specific purpose. To such disciplined desires every 
subject yields its strength ; the sinewy parts rise to the 
surface as when an athlete wrestles. 

Energy, according to the kind and aim of composi- 
tion, assumes three forms — strength, vivacity, and 
vigor. Every thoroughly logical process has in it the 
energy of strength. The premises and conclusions are 
wrought into each other, and the mind is pushed 
irresistibly forward. It may refuse to think, but 
while true to itself, it cannot escape conviction. This 
is the native energy of thought — of truth perspicu- 
ously stated. 

At another time energy softens down into the 
vivacity of the imagination when aroused and warmed 
by feeling. It becomes poetical inspiration, an impas- 
sioned frame of mind, throwing rapidly into life-like 
forms the objects of contemplation. 



ENERGY. 229 

Energy, in its strongest character, is that vigor with 
which a purpose is conceived and executed ; with which 
principles are shaped into proof, and pushed into 
conviction, by which deep feeling is thrown into 
strong currents, compelling action. The first two 
forms arise respectively under the intellect and the 
feelings ; the third includes these, and carries them 
forward in the pursuit of a purpose : it is the, whole 
man developed into action. 

The qualities of thought by which energy in com- 
position is secured are thoroughness, rapidity, and 
directness. Thoroughness starts the movement with 
acknowledged principles, and so far leaves no oppor- 
tunity for retreat. These it unfolds consecutively, and, 
by steady approaches, forces and secures eacli position. 
Without that vigor of thought by which the whole 
subject is -brought into the light, no absolute proof 
can be reached; and proof is the foundation of all 
strength. Darkness always affords a lurldng place 
for doubt. Within the intellect, that light must be 
kindled which is to justify and guide every step. 

So far as the condition of insight will suffer it, the 
movement of thought must be rapid. Rapidity marks 
energy, and imparts it. He who is in earnest will not 
tarry long. To linger in any part of the topic cools 
the feelings, induces a meditative or a listless state, and 



230 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETOKIC. 

results in rest, not action. The progress must be 
sufficient to excite and maintain a o^low of feelino^. 
Especially must there be a tendency to accelerated 
motion as the end of the discourse is approached. The 
earlier parts are more deliberative, and involve proof: 
this being furnished, the mind is warmed into conviction, 
and nov7 justifies to itself the haste of feeling. The 
speaker must, inevitably, as principles are unfolded in 
their immediate application, gather the interest and 
earnestness of a present undertaking : this grow^th of 
feeling is requisite to carry the audience over all obsta- 
cles into the desired action. Nothing can be more 
destructive of persuasion than the loss of feeling as the 
discourse progresses. Whenever the highest point is 
reached, the powder, as then greatest, should be turned to 
the work in hand. The movement in the outset may be 
slow, and even a little tedious, without serious injury ; 
but at the end it must be accelerated, earnest, impetuous. 
It becomes an important caution, not, in the beginning, 
to arouse the emotions when they must of necessity 
fall away, nor to prolong discourse when it has been 
ripened for the end. This concentration of discourse 
by a uniformly accelerated movement, by a growth and 
accumulation of feeling, is one of the highest powers 
of oratory, and, when united with directness, makes its 
effect well nigh irresistible. Without it there is no 



ENERGY. 231 

# 

moral momentum, no enthusiasm. This rapidity is 
almost sure to arise when argument is infused with 
feeling, and employed solely for the end in view. A 
languid state, or a nervous desire to say all that can be 
said, is inevitably destructive of it. 

A third characteristic of energetic thought is direct- 
ness. The movement is not only thorough and rapid, — 
it is in a straight line through the most efficient motives 
to the immediate end. Each thing that is said is not 
only pertinent to the topic, but to the object in view ; 
is presented not only with vivacity, but in its direct 
bearings on the action at issue. Directness is especially 
characteristic of oratory ; since this kind of composition 
receives its form from an immediate, external end, and 
must discern and shape itself to the right line by which 
this is reached. 

Discourse may lose its directness by an undue enlarge- 
ment of either of the means it employs. Argument and 
feeling, the intellectual and emotional elements, are each 
with oratory simply and purely means to an end, and 
therefore to be governed by it. Either of these ele- 
ments is liable, through the constitutional bias of the 
speaker, through vanity, through weakness or uncer- 
tainty of purpose, to break from its proper restraint, and 
become a primary instead of a subsidiary aim. Dis- 
course may be too logical, too reflective, too analytic, 



232 PHILOSOPHY OF hretoric. 

41 

may occupy the mind with subtle distinctions, and dis- 
place the admissions of the popular mind with intricate 
and superfluous proof. It thus becomes philosophical, 
instead of oratorical, entangles itself in secondary 
matter, and weakens the power of the whole. It cheats 
itself with a partial, when a complete success was before 
it. This is the constant danger -of the educated and 
reflective mind. It loves truth and doctrine too much 
for their own sakes. It delights itself, and strives to 
delight others, with speculative relations, with its own 
views in a strictly intellectual realm. It seems a clip- 
ping and humbling of knowledge to employ it solely as 
an instrument for daily uses, never to bring it before the 
audience for its own sake, for the intrinsic perfection 
of its interior relations. The mind that worships truth 
is slww to make it a servant, that it may wash the 
brui.«ed feet of the way-worn traveller. Yet the desire 
of substituting an intellectual for a practical end must 
be perfectly overcome, before the mind is ready for 
oratory. It must devote — I will not say humble — 
all its resources unreservedly and unhesitatingly to the 
end in view. 

The second element, that of emotion, may be turned 
from ihe task assigned it, and employed for an esthetic 
end. The composition thus becomes poetical rather 
than oratorical, and though much feeling may be aroused. 



ENERGY. 233 

mucl), interest elicited, they are put to no use. The 
audience are pleased, but character and conduct remain* 
the same. The imagination has free scope, the heart is 
feasted, but the will is not nerved. The emasculated 
oration does the work of a novel. This error of dis- 
course arises often from the vanity of the speaker, and 
nourishes the indolence of all parties. It becomes fatal 
according to the greatness and urgency of the end pro- 
posed. It is, therefore, in pulpit oratory especially, 
the most inexcusable of faults. 

It is ever to be remembered, that oratory is chiefly to 
be judged by its immediate effect, and, therefore, that 
any symmetry of parts, or finish of execution, that 
weakens the impression, is a fault, rather than an excel- 
lence. Argument and ornament, matter and style, 
must submit themselves to the purpose of the speaker. 
Interior perfection in an instrument is of little value, 
if it does not serve the purpose for which it was made. 
There is at this point often prevalent a very false taste. 
A certain classical excellence is aimed at, as if there 
were in this more true merit than in the patient sub- 
mission of the theme and the method to the wants of 
those addressed. Efficiency and elegance, when rightly 
understood, rest on the same quality — a nice adjust- 
ment of discourse to its object. No useful thing can be 
commended by taste till there is found in it a perfect 



234 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

discharge of its offices. It is under this law, th^t its 
'beauty is to be realized. 

The most submissive orafory is animated by the 
noblest impulses. There is in it no display, no dalliance 
with poetical delights, no indulgence of philosophy, 
but a cheerful, earnest prosecution of labor, the evoking 
and strengthening of right impulses in others. Rebuke 
does not become harsh, nor wit scathing, nor opinion 
sensorious, nor imagination prodigal ; but love softens 
and blends all, and with genial, vital warmth, carries 
the truth over to the intellects and hearts of men. In 
this oratory of practical benevolence, this thorough per- 
meation of every word with a generous and hearty pur- 
pose, there is far more life and true elegance than can 
possibly be reached in the cold realm of artistic effort. 
Since oratory cannot much enlarge itself in the region 
of mere selfishness, but must seek -common and broad 
interests, philanthropy — a just estimate and love of men 
— will always be its unconscious vital power, and any form 
of self-assertion its danger. It is love which removes 
anger, the irritating edge of censure; love that finds 
secondary and less worthy motives, and unites them 
under the higher motive; love that turns all influence 
into persuasion, and directs that persuasion towards vir- 
tue. This is most obviously and thoroughly true of 
pulpit oratory. We doubt not, however, that a great 



ENERGY. Z6b 

difficulty with discourse in other forms is, that it is too 
often made to turn on limited and selfish ends, that the 
mind is too contracted and personal in its aims to dis- 
cover the true strength of the subject*. The popular 
mind quickly feels and yields to the steady pressure 
of a benevolent purpose. 

Energetic thought possesses in a greater or less 
degree these three elements — thoroughness, rapidity, 
and directness ; and as, in turn, each is preeminent, that 
energy will assume the form of strength, of vivacity, or 
of vigor. Thoroughness is more an intellectual quality ; 
this predominating, we have the strength of the logician. 
Kapidity arises from the flexibility and life of feeling ; 
this in the -^ ■ ; o^^^^ ^^^ vivacity of poetry. 

Directnr ^dent on the fixedness of desire and 

will ; this . ^rolling, vv^e have the vigor of the orator. 
In no production are these qualities so fully contained, 
and evenly adjusted, as in oratory. 

We have now to speak of the more external charac- 
teristics of an energetic style. Here we have occasion 
for the divisions employed under perspicuity, though 
each is considered from a different point. The energy 
of language will depend on the choice, number, and 
arrangement of words. It is obvious in the outset, 
that the strength of style will be closely connected with 
the precision of the words chosen. This, however, has 



236 PHILOSOPHY OP EHETORTC. 

been sufficiently referred to under "Perspicuity." The 
vivacity of the expression will depend very much on 
speciality. The most specific, individual word is to be 
chosen as oppos'ed to the more general, generic word. 
The reason of this is obvious. The one word contains a 
complete description, a precise image, and the imagina- 
tion at once constructs the picture : the other word 
includes the object or action with many others, and 
therefore defines none of them perfectly. The imagina- 
tion does no more than the word, and leaves the picture 
vague and general. To say, " He shoved the boat from 
the shore," is descriptive of the manner of the action ; to 
say, " He removed ' the boat from the shore," tells us 
nothing of the method, but only the fact. We need, 
as much as possible, -to deal with concrete, living 
things, and not with abstractions ; we wish, then, the 
individual, not the generic word. Science loves to 
overlook differences, and limit its view to single points 
of agreement, and thus constructs the skeleton of phi- 
losophy ; poetry and life reverse the process, and reclothe 
objects with their distinctive features and beauties. A 
scientific style has not enough imagination in it, enough 
nearness to living things, enough vivacity, to animate 
and please the popular mind. 

The vigor of expression will depend on the strength 
of the words chosen. The word must be adequate 



ENERGY. 237 

to the office it has to discharge. Weak words can- 
not be the* vehicle of strong emotion. The strength 
of the word is principally to be determined by the feel- 
ing it is called to utter. We are not confined to 
a simple statement of facts, but, in our language con- 
cerning them, may also express the emotions which they 
have aroused. Speech thus frequently employs hyper- 
bole, and carries the word beyond the fact, seeking thus 
to reveal the impression it has made upon the mind. 
The vigorous speaker searches for strong, full words to 
convey his own conception of the subject. 

This sort of energy is often sought by language dis- 
proportionate to the occasion. There are two things to 
be expressed — the facts, and the feelings concerning 
them. Lans^uao^e w^hich is true to either of these can- 
not be greatly at fault. As it is easier, however, to 
compass heroic expression than heroic feeling, strong 
words than delicate and profound sensibilities, an effort 
is often and most ineffectively made to replace the latter 
with the former. The overstrained expression, losing 
application and honesty, becomes the mere semblance 
of strength, and in the end most false and wearisome. 
No style is more thoroughly weak than one unduly 
strong, as no feelings are usually more vapid than those 
which dwell in hj^erbole. 

This is seen in asseverations and epithets. The 



238 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

Strongest and most stable authority expresses its com- 
mands in the most simple and direct form. In* proportion 
as threat, expostulation, and assurance are added, do we 
distrust the power, or the intention of execution. 
Strength, firmness, and truth are too self-confident to 
make much ado. A statement that is enforced with many 
asseverations, in its very form indicates a conscious- 
ness of weakness. A heavy prop against a building 
gives promise of a fall, though we may not yet detect 
the seams. This principle, however, suffers limitation. 
There is admissible a dignified and proper assertion of 
what in itself seems doubtful. The mind may thus 
mark the certainty of the thing, and the depth of its 
own conviction. 

An epithet is an adjective which expresses a quality 
w^ell known to exist in the noun to which it is attached. 
Thus the adjective glorious, as applied to the sun, is an 
epithet. Such adjectives convey no information, and 
are used to magnify the noun, to distend and impress the 
idea. They have, therefore, only rare application, and 
are the constant resort of weak and trite thought. The 
office of language is to utter what is in the idea, not to 
magnify it into something other or more than itself. 
Strong thinking is more essential to strong expres- 
sion than strong expression to strong thinking. The 
mind is often best pleased with simple and subdued 



ENERGY. 239 

language, when the magnitude of the thought alone 
occupies it. 

A second consideration is the number of words. En- 
ergy, even more than perspicuity, is dependent on con- 
ciseness. Without it there cannot be that rapidity 
of movement, that concentration of force, mentioned 
above. Yet strength is not gained by condensation, 
when this proceeds in the least beyond the limits of 
perspicuity. In the essay, the demands of perspicuity 
and energy are essentially the same. In the discourse, 
the aim is much more frequently to enforce that which 
is familiar than to present that which is new. Every- 
thing must be judged by the impression it makes, 
not by its logical relations to that which has preceded. 
It is not so much the return of ideas, that is now to 
be guarded against, as the repetition of trite, unim- 
pressive forms. The actual advance of the idea in 
the new sentence, the new illustration, may be very 
small, and yet the gain to the feelings be quite per- 
ceptible. Amplification — the power to unfold on 
diverse sides and in diverse directions a single car- 
dinal thought, till it occupies the mind and resumes 
its hold on the heart — is a chief excellence of oratory. 
Progress — a rapid passing from idea to idea — becomes 
in a measure dangerous : there is no hold secured by 
the topic. The mind needs to dwell, without halting, 



240 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

on a thought, till its practical bearings are fully im- 
pressed upon it. It is with our most familiar ideas 
that oratory has chiefly to do — from these that its 
motives are derived. A mere statement, therefore, of 
what is already more or less present to the mind, will 
make but little impression. The subject must be taken 
up anew, the half-forgotten path retrodden, and the 
topic brought home with fresh and living impressions. 
Mere repetitions will not accomplish this ; no more will 
unceasing transition from thought to thought. A single, 
central idea is to renew its hold on the mind; and this 
can only be done by a treatment which amplifies the 
subject and clings to it. Novelty and instruction are 
only the occasional, not the habitual, aids of oratory. 
Our progress, then, is not to be measured in the straight 
line of logic, but in the growth of feeling. Monotony, 
diffuseness, tread the same circle round and round ; 
power, conciseness, return again and again to the thought, 
but from an advanced, a higher point. The mind as- 
cends along a spiral to the culminating impression aimed 
at. Oratory does not differ from other forms of compo- 
sition in not requiring conciseness, but in determining 
what is concise or otherwise by the exigencies of feeling, 
and not of thought. All that does not bear the emotions 
onward, even though it occupy the thoughts, encumbers 
the discourse, and is an extra burden to be borne by it. 



ENERGY. 241 

The faults most commonly opposed to conciseness are 
tautology, pleonasm, and verbosity. These words, as 
usually employed, do not exclusively denote faulty forms 
of expression. A sentence may be tautological, pleo- 
nastic, or verbose, when judged merely by the thought, 
and yet thereby be the more vigorous. Intense passion 
is, from its very nature, tautological ; it clings to the 
object of contemplation. Many words are thrown into 
a sentence, not to amplify the thought, but to modify 
our feelings concerning it. " Shall not the Judge of all 
the earth do right ? " is a familiar example. If, therefore, 
we are to use these words to denote faults exclusively, 
we must have reference both to thought and impression. 
Tautology thus becomes unnecessary repetition. This, 
by a slight change of words, is often disguised from 
the writer himself. An event, with a modification of 
expression, is assigned as the cause or the effect of 
itself. 

Pleonasm is the use of superfluous words, and is cor- 
rected by excision ; verbosity, a cumbersome expression, 
to be corrected by restatement. Verbosity differs from 
verbiage. The one is a reflection on the style, the other 
on the thought. 

What has been said requires this further caution, that 
impression is less frequently reached by lengthy 'forms 
and an accumulation of words than is often supposed. 
11 P 



242 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOaiC. 

A heavily-laden style is almost sure to be feeble. Bet- 
ter occasionally to fall short of perspicuity than often to 
transcend it. At this point a knowledge of men and 
occasions, with a mastery of the topic and a practical 
interest in it, can alone save from error. Our* knowl- 
edge prevents diffuse and weak handling ; our interest 
in results corrects unimpassioned and protracted proof. 

A third consideration in energy is the arrangement of 
words. All parts of the sentence are not equally prom- 
inent, equally important. The more weighty words, 
therefore, must, as far as possible, be assigned the more 
emphatic positions. These are the beginning and the 
end of the sentence, especially the latter. A significant 
and pregnant word should gather up and close the asser- 
tion, and give the sentence a full cadence. Pains must 
also be taken to scatter and conceal particles in the mid- 
dle of the sentence. They thus become less conspicuous, 
and less interrupt the flow of the thought. It is fre- 
quently forgotten that the very succession of sentences 
sufficiently marks many forms of dependence, and ren- 
ders introductory conjunctions unnecessary. 

Inversion, also, not merely because it assigns an im- 
portant position to an emphatic word, but because it is 
inversion, often gives freshness and power to the expres- 
sion.* Yet this, like all unusual methods, can only be 
occasionally employed. Style becomes affected and 



ENERGY. 243 

quaint if inversion passes much beyond what custom 
sanctions. 

Under the arrangement of words belongs the division 
of sentences into the period, and loose sentence. The 
criterion of the former is, that if a pause be made at any 
point before the end, the meaning is not complete. The 
reverse is true in the loose sentence. The dependence 
in the former is reciprocal between the earlier and later 
parts ; in the loose sentence the later portions may be 
dependent on the earlier, but the earlier are not depen- 
dent on the later. 

The period retains the idea till it closes, and then 
brings it at once before the mind. Its force, like that 
of the hammer, is stored up till the last' instant, anrl 
then delivered in a blow. There belong to it strength 
and dignity. The loose sentence is more easy, and, if 
not long, more vivacious. If either predominates in 
style, its character will become correspondingly aiFected. 
The period is too formal for the highest energy, which 
requires a more simple and curt expression. The more 
marked and impressive any method, as a carefully 
wrought climax, the less can it become an ever-return- 
ing method. The direct and unobtrusive forms must be 
the staple of composition. Style should be left, in the 
first instance, to the spontaneous action of thought ; 
afterward, in its critical consideration, sentences should 



244 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

be recast, as variety and harmony may require. The 
inventive and critical states of mind are too distinct to 
coexist. The one should follow the other, till the cor- 
rected becomes the habitual style of expression. 

Energy will also depend on the figures employed. 
Tropical terms are a constant instrument of the impas- 
sioned mind. A trope is the use of one word for an- 
other on the ground of some connection between the two 
ideas indicated by them. The connections on which 
tropes proceed are very various, and have given rise to 
many technical names. The correct use of these may 
call for some analysis, and thus discipline the mind, but 
cannot serve any very important rhetorical purpose. The 
pinciples which include tropes in all their varieties are 
essentially the same. By means of this natural and 
inevitable association and substitution of ideas, style 
gains many obvious advantages. The eye has under its 
range all adjacent fields, and by some connection of 
resemblance, or dependence, or partnership, suddenly 
forsakes the thing spoken of, and puts as its repre- 
sentative a more fresh and glowing image. The fancy 
is winged ; it moves everywhere, and plucks every flower 
for its wreath. The subject cannot langTiish, since all 
related themes minister to its illustration and embellish- 
ment. A constant succession of images arouses and 
pleases the mind. The barrenness of one point is re- 



ENERGY. 245 

Heved by the freshness of another, and from all sides 
;ome trooping in the dramatis personce. 

The mind is interested by the resemblance or connec- 
tion of ideas ; the light of comparison is thrown upon 
the subject ; a more striking is substituted for a less 
striking object, the animate for the inanimate, things 
sensible for things intelligible, the specific for the gen- 
eral. The abstract nature of the subject is thus evaded, 
and tke imagination brought into full play. All this is 
accomplished without the addition of a single word. The 
rapid, free, and often brilliant way in which the trope 
does its work has drawn much attention to it, and 
assigned it a conspicuous position in rhetoric. 

"I love the man, I hate the viceroy," makes the scene 
animate throughout. The imagination, by a bold effort, 
'evokes from one two distinct persons, and sets them over 
against each other as objects of affection and aversion. 
The fancy thus clothes every subject with the vivid im- 
agery suggested by its attributes, and moves constantly 
in a world of living and related things. Tropes are the 
product and food of passion. To one's own faults we 
add the historic infamy of an Arnold or a Judas by a 
simple designation under these hated names. 

Adjectives, nouns, verbs, and adverbs are vehicles of 
tropical expression. The action we affirm of an object, 



246 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. 

the qualities we assign it, at once give distinctness and 
character to the image. Verbs and adjectives cannot be 
too carefully chosen. The right appellative is a sentence 
in itself. 

Tropes are partially subject to use. This is shown in 
the fact that they cannot be fully transferred from lan- 
guage to language, nor from one term to a kindred one 
in the same language. The string of discourse cannot 
be used for the thread of discourse ; nor, It rounds with 
my idea, for, It squares with my idea. Tropes have all 
degrees of vivacity — sometimes shooting the most bril- 
liant light, sometimes scarcely luminous. This arises 
from a difference in original aptness, and from the fact 
that a trope, by repetition, rapidly loses its power, till 
at length it has only the force of a proper term. When 
the word becomes directly associated with its new idea; 
the original connection is lost sight of, and the term 
sinks into the growing ranks of simply grammatical 
tropes. Just at the transition period, and a little before 
it, the trope is even more trite than the proper term. 
There is a certain worn-out gentility about it that puts 
it to disadvantage with plain homespun. Good tropes 
or none should be the general rule. When the road 
becomes a little weary, the more direct we make it the 
better. Tropes may readily so overload the subject with 



ENERGY. 247 

imagery as to distract the mind ; or, possessing it with a 
poetic intoxication, unfit it for stern, straightforward 
movement. A few clarion notes startle the ear more 
than a constant bray of trumpets. Simplicity is the 
fundamental rule everywhere, above all, with energetic 
working thoughts. 

Among other figures which energy often employs may 
be mentioned hyperbole, personification, apostrophe. 
These are all the offspring of passion — ^the means which 
it has found of expression. Hence the rule for them all 
becomes the same : That the feeling of the s'peaker and 
the audience must make them natural. Otherwise, they 
are ridiculous. 

The highest energy in discourse will not suflPer rid- 
ing. There is a want of spontaneous and immediate 
impression, of perfect and impassioned connection with 
the audience and occasion, of free, reciprocal action 
between the speaker and listener, which cannot be wholly 
overcome. This is most obvious in those figures of dis- 
course which seem to be the insight and inspiration of 
the moment — the glow of the mind that utters them. 
They need to be sustained by the supposition, that they 
have just flashed upon the thought. It is evident that 
the highest directness and warmth can be given to 
speech only when it is, or seems to be, the communica- 
tion of our immediate sentiments. Nature and cultiva- 



248 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 

tion, the thoughtful judgments of the past, and the 
inspiration of the present, unite in the oration to pro- 
duce a powerful and impassioned product — the fulness 
of rhetorical effort, the ripest fruit of our intellectual 
and moral life. 



IISTDEX 



Address, its objects, 22; order, 23; 
kinds, 24. 

Adverbs, dependence of, 202. 

Affections, 40. 

Analogy, 144. 

Anglo-Saxon words, 200. 

Antithesis, 196. 

Arguments, nature of, choice and ar- 
rangement, 63 ; kinds of, 78. 

Arrangement of words, 201, 242. 

Art, what, 9; relation to science, 10; 
those subsidiary to rhetoric, 14. 

Asseverations, 237. 

B. 

Bar, legal oratory, 50. 
Barbarism, 152; kinds, 153, 
Burden of proof, 84. 



Calculation of chances, 75. 

Canons of, 144. 

Capacity of audience, 185. 

Choice of words, 197, 235; of argu- 
ments, 86. 

Common life, language of, 199. 

Comparisons, 193. 

Composition, what, 13; departments 
of, 20. 

Compounds, 156; rules for construc- 
tion, 157. 

11* 



Conjunctions, solecism in, 171. 
Consciousness, form of proof, 65. 
Conventional phrases, 149. 
Criticism on language, 143, 



D. 



Declension, marks of, 160. 
Deduction, 78. 
Deflniteness of end, 227. 
Deliberative eloquence, 49. 
Desires connected with energy, 223, 
Development of composition, 25. 
Directness, 231. 
Discipline of taste, 211. 
Drollery, 199. 



Education, effect on words, 198. 
Elegance, 182; how secured, 207. 
Eloquence, nature of, 60. 
Emotions, kinds, and how aroused, 95. 
Energy, 182 ; how reached, 223. 
Epithets, 237. 
Etymology, 146. 
Experience, what, 68. 



Fallacies, 68, 71, 92. 
Feeling, at the disposal of orator, 105, 
107 ; connection with elegance, 208. 
(249) 



250 



INDEX. 



Figures, connection with energy. 244. 
Foreign words, 162. 



Humor, what, 119 5 contrasted with 
wit, 120. 



Imagination, office of, 113. 

Improprieties, 172 ; disadvantages of, 
177. 

Induction, 78. 

Influence, law of, 55. 

Interest, as a motive, 42 j warping lan- 
guage, 188. 

Introductions, office of, 100. 

Intuitions, what, 64. 



I.. 

Language, relation to thought, 125 ; 

changes of, 128 ; constituents of, 

129. « 

Literature, knowledge of, 214» 
Loose sentence, 243. 



Man, knowledge of, 213. 
Means of composition, 53. 
Memory, form of proof, 65 ; office of, 
117 ; how addressed, 117. 



]sr. 

Nature, knowledge of, 212. 

Novel, what, 30. 

Number of words, 201, 239. 



O. 

Obscurity of subject, 186 ; ever appo- 
site, 204. 



Opinion, confounded with observa- 
tion, 74 ; opinions the audience have 
of speaker?, 96. 

Oratory, relation to ends and means, 
and its kinds, 36. 



Partisan feeling, 98. 

Passion, 41. 

Passive verb, 170. 

Period, 243. 

Permanence of literature, 136. 

Perspicuity, 181 ; how secured, 185. 

Philosophy of art, of rhetoric, what, 
12 ; advantages of, 19. 

Plan, 191. 

Pleasure, as a motive, 41. 

Pleonasm, 241. 

Poetry, what, and relations, 32. 

Progress, in oration, 110. 

Pronouns, reference of, 208. 

Proof, sources of, 64 ; kiuds, 77 ; perti- 
nent, 83. 

Propriety, 136 ; why regarded, 136. 

Prose, forms of, 28. 

Provincialisms, 153. 

Principle, what relations of, 11. 

Purity, what, 136 ; importance of, 174. 



Q. 

Qualities of style, 181; relation to 
each other, 209. 



Rapidity, 229. 

Reason, form of proof, 67. 

Relation, between style and subject, 

215 ; between parts and whole, 217 ; 

discourse and circumstances, 219 ; 

discourse and speaker, 221. 
Rhetoric, what, 13; steps by which 

reached, 14. 
Ridicule, what, 123 ; office of, 123. 
Right, as a motive, 39. 



INDEX. 



251 



Right, as a law of influence, 56. 

Rule, what, and relations of, 11 ; rela- 
tion to nature, 16 ; relation to genius, 
17 j relation to success, 17. 



Science, what, 9 ; relation to arts, 12. 

Senses, form of proof, 64. 

Skill, what, 10. 

Solecism, canon on, 148 ; what, 159 ; 

disadvantages of, 175 j examples of, 

163. 
Speciality, 236. 
Strength, 228. 
Style, what, 179 ; kinds, 180 j qualities 

of, 181. 
Subjunctive, 163. 
Success, dependent on right, 57. 
Symmetry, 138. 
Sympathy, importance of, 95 ; -methods 

of securing, 102. 
Synonymes, 173. 



Tautology, 241. 
Tenses, laws of, 165 



errors m, 



Testimony, form of proof, 74. 
Thoroughness, 229, 
Tropes, 246. 



Univocal words, 147. 
Use, what, 134 j qualities of, 1.36 ; how 
established, 140 ; divided use, 142. 



V. 

Verbosity, 241. 

Vigor, 229. 

Virtue, connected with enefgy, 227. 

Vivacity, 228. 

Vivid ideas, how secured, 115. 

Vulgarisms, 153. 



W. 

"Will, connected with energy, 225. 

Wit, what, 119; dangers of, 121; ad- 
vantages of, 122. 

Words, change in meaning, 130 ; in 
philosophy, 131 ; in poetry, 131 ; their 
strength, 236. 



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